


Such Great Heights

by Takada_Saiko



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Altered Reality, Family, Multi, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-02-23 19:02:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 80,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13196559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Takada_Saiko/pseuds/Takada_Saiko
Summary: Everything looks perfect from far away, but the closer she looks the more cracks in that perfect façade Wynonna finds.





	1. Part One

 

There was something about that place between sleep and awake that left the mind more willing to accept. A thought, a sound, anything could influence the dream-state, allowing the brain to work through and make sense of the input. While awake a chill could be blamed on an open vent, but the sleeping mind wrapped around it, picked it apart, and created a whole new story for the source.

It was in that no-man's land where anything could happen that Wynonna found herself. She was comfortable, floating, with no chill to be felt. For the first time in what she was certain was forever she felt at peace and safe, even if her mind couldn't quite deliver why she shouldn't feel safe.

Peace never lasted long, though, at least not in her household. A loud, giggling squeal accompanied a bounce at the foot of the bed, followed immediately by another as Plucky the coonhound followed Alice Holliday into the middle of her parents that had been trying to sleep just a little longer. No such luck there.

"Alice, honey, just five more minutes?" Doc grumbled from the bed next to Wynonna, that deep southern drawl even more pronounced half-asleep.

"No!" the little girl shouted, giggling loudly. "Plucky, get 'im!"

"Oh no," Wynonna yelled, pulling the covers up over her head. "Plucky, you drool on me and you're gonna be an _outside_ mutt from now on!"

Alice giggled and Wynonna's own smile was hidden beneath the comforter as the excitable dog barked loudly and tried to rouse the man also trying to hide under the sheets now, following the commands of the only master in the house, and that definitely wasn't either of them.

Wynonna shot her husband a glare. "Get your own hiding spot, coward."

"Get up! Get up! Get up!" the little girl chanted, jumping on the bed between her parents and both Wynonna and Doc gave simultaneously, throwing the comforter back and startling Plucky off the bed.

Doc dove for their giggling daughter and she squirmed as his arms wrapped around her and he pulled her back down into the bed with them. Wynonna dove to help, grabbing at flailing legs and Alice could barely breathe as hard as she was laughing and fighting. Finally she stilled and Wynonna's blue eyes flickered up to look at Doc who had her in a bear hold. "Now, little one, what could have possibly been goin' through your mind to come in here at -" He looked to Wynonna.

She risked a glance at the clock and shuddered. "Six AM."

"- Six AM to wake up your lovin' momma and papa?"

Alice was still giggling and gasping and giggling some more, but she'd stopped squirming now and and Wynonna let go of her legs and returned to her own pillow to look her daughter in those big blue eyes that looked so much like her daddy's. She found that her own smile hadn't faded either.

"It'smabirthday," Alice managed.

"What? _No_ ," Doc teased from behind her.

"Yes!"

"Can't be. I was there. I know," Wynonna joined in.

"Me too!" Alice giggled.

"Yeah, you remember it, kiddo?"

The only answer was a laugh and the little girl buried herself down in the sheets.

"Okay," Doc said and kissed the back of her head, "if it's really your birthday, how old are you?"

"Five!"

"No."

"Yes!"

"No."

"Yes!"

"Okay, that's going to go on forever," Wynonna laughed and leaned forward and kissed the little girl on the forehead. "We're not supposed to meet Aunt Waverly and Nicole for another couple of hours, but if you can get them to wake up…."

And Alice was gone just like that, bounding off the bed and into the closet.

Doc sat up a little. "What's she goin' for?"

"My phone."

"Ain't it locked?"

"She knows the code."

"Our five year old knows the code to your phone?"

"Don't look at me. I gave up changing it. Waves won't be mad. She can't tell that kid no."

Alice returned to the bedroom with Wynonna's cell phone pressed to her ear. "Gracie too?"

"No, baby, she'll come with Aunt Willa and Uncle Robert for the party."

The five-year-old's face crunched up and a tantrum was imminent with the news that her favourite - and only, at least for a few more months - cousin wouldn't be at breakfast with them, but it dissipated and was instantly replaced with a bright smile. "Auntie Waverly! Mornin'! You wanna go to breakfast?"

Wynonna watched her disappear out the bedroom door and around the corner with her phone. There was no use in telling her to stop. She'd have to call Waverly after they got up and clear up the details. She knew that Alice's _right now_ and Wynonna and Doc's _right now_ were two very different _right now_ 's.

"Grace feelin' better?" Doc asked as he swung his legs over the side of the bed. "Didn't you say she's been sick?"

"Yeah, she's better. Willa just didn't want to have her out all day. Especially with needing to get everything decorated. She talked about just her coming but you know how that would end up."

"With Grace there," Doc chuckled. "It would indeed. That little girl knows what she wants 'n how to get it. You need anythin' last second for the party?"

Wynonna flashed him a flirty smile before standing, rounding the bed, and wrapping her arms around his neck. Her husband grinned under his thick mustache as she tipped up and kissed him, her voice low in his ear after they broke. "Cake, balloons, streamers, and the pinata?"

Doc pulled back immediately. "You said you were ready for this."

"I am! I got the bananas and the ice cream!" Wynonna defended. "And I've got a killer playlist for the party."

"Oh, well then…"

"Ass."

"I'll pick it up," he assured her and kissed her forehead. "Have a good breakfast with the girls."

"Don't get distracted by the glitter."

He shot her an amused look before sauntering off towards the shower, tugging his t-shirt off halfway there and damn it all if they did not have time for those sorts of distractions today.

* * *

The alarm was blaring off somewhere to his right and he reached a hand out clumsily for it, finally cracking is eyes open to find himself staring up at the ceiling above the bed, everything a little blurry. He found the offending source of the noise, slamming his open palm down against the clock hard once, twice, and it finally stopped screaming at him on the third try. Blissful silence met him and he soaked it in for a long moment, hoping that the sound wouldn't wake the little girl sleeping in the room next to theirs.

"I thought you said you turned it off last night," a sleepy voice muttered next to him and Robert turned back towards her, close enough that he could make out her drowsy form in the early morning light even without his glasses. Willa's dark blonde hair was half covering her face where she lay buried down into her pillow, almost as if it would ward off the need to get up and get moving for the day.

"Apparently not," her husband grumbled, shifting down deeper under the covers against his better judgement. He could see the little smirk playing across her features as his hand wandered under the sheets, fingers ghosting over her hip as he carefully wrapped an arm around her waist and scooted her closer to him.

By the time she got there, she was grinning at him. "Hey."

"Hey," he greeted back, voice low and raspy. She seemed to like it well enough as she leaned in, her own hand finding the edge of his t-shirt and he felt her cold fingers tease at bare skin beneath it as she pressed her lips against his. It turned into a hell of a good morning as he felt her sitting up, moving him so that he was on his back and she was leaned over him, the same blond hair falling all around both of them now. Robert sank back against the pillow as he felt her hand slide up, palm pressed against one side of his face, and she leaned into the kiss.

"Mama, Kitty threw up."

Blue eyes popped open and Willa immediately shifted off of him, trying to play it as cool as any mother could when their four-year-old walked in when they shouldn't have. "What, sweetie?" she asked, and Robert reached for his glasses on the bedside table.

"Kitty threw up," Grace repeated, looking very put out that she had to repeat herself. The four-year-old crossed her arms and stuck her lower lip out just a little. She looked a sight with her thick, light brown hair sticking out in all directions, even her bangs, from under the hood of her purple panda pj's, the bottoms just a little too long so they nearly covered up her favourite new slippers that Willa had sworn she would never wear when she'd begged for them in the store. Those had unicorns on them. She had told her daddy that the pandas and the unicorns were friends one day and it was all he'd been able to do to keep a straight face.

Willa fell back against her pillow, reaching over to pat Robert as she did. "Your turn."

"Pretty sure I got the last one." He could almost feel the glare building there and he let a teasing grin stretch slowly as he leaned over her and pressed a quick kiss to her lips. "But I wouldn't _dream_ of asking a pregnant woman to clean up after the cat. I'm not a monster."

She hummed and chuckled, but never actually agreed as he shifted out of bed and his bare feet hit the cold wood floors. A chill ran through him as he stood and Grace was waiting for him, ready to show him exactly what he needed to do and to supervise. Together they got it cleaned up, Grace's real job to keep the cat out of the middle of it, and after they'd gotten it all taken care of and thrown away he scooped her up, feeling her melt sleepily against him. No one was an early riser in the Svane household.

"Do you want breakfast or do you want to go back to bed?" he asked her, and for just a moment he thought maybe she'd already fall asleep with the way she was draped over his shoulder.

"Cinnamon toast?" came the delayed reply.

"Breakfast then?"

"Cinnamon toast," she corrected and Robert chuckled, reaching up to bury his long fingers in her hair and ruffle it a little.

"Whatever the little angel wants," he answered and pressed a kiss to the side of her head as he carried her into the kitchen.

Robert set her down on the counter, careful to watch that she was steady before moving towards the coffee pot to fill it with ground beans and set it to go. He glanced over to see a pair of hazel eyes just like her mother's watching him and he offered her a wink as he dug through the cupboards for the sugar and the cinnamon. He found both and moved back to the counter next to her, those eyes watching every step, and he set it down while reaching for the bread.

"Daddy?"

"Yeah, Angel?" He glanced over and saw the most serious look that a four-year-old could manage.

"I wanna go to the books."

Robert snorted a short laugh at the request. He'd been expecting something much more daunting. "We're going to Alice's birthday party today. What do you say we go to the library tomorrow?"

She set her tiny jaw, thinking on the proposal for a long moment before she finally nodded. "Can Alice come?"

"Ah… Alice doesn't like the library as much as you do, Angel."

"'Kay."

And that was that. Robert put together their breakfast and Grace helped, offering tips on _more cinnamon_ and _more sugar_ all the way through. Once it had met her approval he popped it into the oven and turned to find Willa standing at the kitchen entrance and smiling at him. He quirked a hesitant smile of his own. "What….?"

"It's just funny, is all. I remember being a freshman in high school and every girl knew Doc Holliday. I guess he was Hank back then, but we all knew him. Then there was this idiot that he made friends with and damn if he wasn't the biggest dork I'd ever seen."

Grace giggled and looked at him. "You were a dork, Daddy."

"I was…. studious," he corrected, pressing a kiss to her cheek before checking to make sure he wasn't burning the toast in the oven.

"You were a dork. Don't lie to your kid," Willa teased. "I wouldn't have given you a second glance then."

"Something changed."

"Mm. You grew up… maybe I did too. I'm glad we did."

He reached for the mit and opened the oven door, pulling the cookie sheet from it and setting the newly toasted sugar and cinnamon coated bread on top to cool. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. Also glad you finally worked up the nerve to ask me out when you came back to Purgatory. I thought Doc was gonna break your arm as hard as he twisted it."

"Any reason we're taking a trip down memory lane?" Robert chuckled.

"Just enjoying the scenery," she answered, her eyebrow jumping suggestively.

Robert chuckled and grabbed for the plates from the cupboard before turning and lifting Grace from her seat and to the floor. "You want to take your own plate?"

"Yeah," she answered, glancing over to her mother. "Am I gonna have a little brother or little sister?"

It was Willa's turn to crack a smile. "We don't know yet, honey. We should in a couple of days when I go to the doctor."

"Will you tell me?"

"Of course."

"I think it's a little brother. I always wanted a little brother. Since I was two."

"Did you now?" Willa laughed and grabbed her own plate, kissing the cook on the cheek as she moved past. "You know what today is, Grace?"

"Alice's birthday," Grace answered without missing a beat, but immediately stuffed nearly half the slice of toast into her mouth.

Robert leaned back in his chair as he watched his girls, Willa smiling and shaking her head while Grace knew that she'd made her mother smile. It hadn't always been this simple, but he loved it, and he wouldn't change it for anything.

"Hey?" Willa called softly, touching his hand and he blinked owlishly at her from behind his rimmed glasses, startled out of his thoughts. "What's on your mind?"

"Just how lucky I am," he murmured, taking her hand and bending to press a kiss to her knuckles.

"Charmer," she said with a grin.

"Don't make it untrue."

"Mm." She stood and leaned down to press a quick kiss to his lips and he felt the rush of wanting more. "You have that meeting at the school, don't you? You'll be done by two?"

"If we're not done by noon there'll be a riot. Should be at the bar in time to help you decorate."

"Are you going to talk to what's-his-name? The one Jeremy likes? You know he's never going to ask him out himself."

Robert snorted. "You keep thinking I'm going to play matchmaker right after giving me hell on how long it took me to ask _you_ out."

"Mama's scary," Grace piped up from her place, cinnamon and sugar everywhere.

"You bet I am," Willa answered and kissed the top of her head. "I'm an Earp, and your daddy knows it." She offered him a wink. "Love you."

He kissed her, this time letting it linger just shy of receiving a complaint from their daughter before breaking it off to get ready to go down to the high school before their niece's party.

* * *

"Are you sure she said this diner?" Nicole asked drowsily.

Waverly grinned, giving her sleepy girlfriend a gentle nudge. "It's the only one in town. Drink your coffee. It'll help."

She received a grumbling response and Waverly smiled. Well, not everyone could pop out of bed that quickly.

"Auntie Waverly!"

Hazel eyes flickered over to see a bounding newly-turned-five-year-old aiming right for her and Waverly grinned as she stood from the table to scoop the little girl up and spin her around. "Hey, birthday girl! Look at you up bright and early. You didn't get that from your mom, did you?"

Wynonna shot her younger sister an irritable look and Waverly just grinned widely at her. "No Willa this morning?"

"At this hour? You're lucky I'm here."

"Aunt Willa's coming to the party," Alice explained. "Gracie's been sick."

"Oh no, she didn't tell me that."

"Hard to get ahold of you some days," Wynonna said with a smirk and took a seat next to Nicole so that Alice could sit next to Waverly. The redhead seemed to have stirred out of her sleepy daze enough to greet the birthday girl, though, and currently had her wrapped up in a big hug and pressed a kiss to her dark hair.

"I wanna sit here," Alice told her aunt, pointing at the seat that Waverly was returning to next to Nicole and the third Earp sister lifted one fair eyebrow.

"Do I even get a please?"

"Please? I wanna sit next to both of you."

"It's her birthday, Waves. Don't give her a hard time," Nicole teased and offered a wink to Alice whose grin couldn't get any bigger.

"Ooooookay," Waverly teased and moved over one seat next to her sister.

Alice crawled up into the seat with a satisfied grin on her face and refused the booster seat but readily accepted the kid's menu with the crayons and the birthday crown that the waiter gave her. "Can I have a candle in my pancakes?"

"I think we can make that happen," he answered and took the orders and handed Wynonna what looked like a cup of much needed coffee.

"So what theme do you have for the party this year?" Waverly asked.

"Cowboy-princess," Alice said firmly and at the glance Wynonna shrugged.

"The kid gets what she wants. Only turn five once, but you would know that if you'd looked at your invite."

There was mischief dancing in her sister's eyes and Waverly opened her mouth in her own defence, but Nicole jumped in. "She's been stretched pretty thin lately. Between the BBD and gearing up the campaign even I've barely seen her."

"You know, I thought I'd get a _break_ when I put down all seventy-six Revenants in two years. I mean, c'mon, right?" Waverly laughed.

Wynonna quirked an eyebrow, a small smirk playing at her lips. "No rest for the Earp Heir, even after she breaks the family curse, but don't you dare blame it on the BBD. I have to listen to Dolls gripe day in and day out how we haven't seen you at HQ since you decided to run for mayor."

"He said you guys had it covered!"

"And we do. We're good. Right, Nicole?"

"Totally. You just focus on the campaign and let Wynonna, Dolls, Jeremy, and me take care of the paranormal," Nicole agreed.

"Okay," Waverly murmured, wondering if maybe her focus had been a little too much on setting up the campaign and too little on the job that she truly loved. She had been the first Earp Heir that wasn't the first born, but apparently Peacemaker had known exactly what it was doing when it chose her. It had taken two years, but she - along with the others - had broken the curse. All seventy-six of the demons had been sent back to hell, freeing she and her family from the curse from that day on. There were still demons, still paranormal activity, but nothing that had a definite need of the Earp Heir and she had retired Peacemaker to try to focus on bettering the place they lived in.

"Dad would be so proud of you, Baby Girl," Wynonna said, pulling her out of her thoughts. "He always knew you could do it."

"I miss him," Waverly murmured, not quite able to keep the sadness out of her voice. She cleared her voice. "Is Mom coming to the party?"

"Yeah, she's supposed to be in for the day, but I bet if her angel asked that she'd be willing to stay till tomorrow."

"Grandma's not staying?" Alice asked, immediately looking up from her colouring job.

Waverly leaned over conspiratorially. "I bet we can convince her if we work together. What do you say?"

"Yeah! Double team her!"

Waverly choked the coffee she'd just tried to take a sip from and laughed. "You are definitely Wynonna's daughter."

"We're raising her right, you mean," her sister grinned.

"Wouldn't have her any other way."

Breakfast came and Alice's attention was on the sparkling candle that their waiter had gotten for them. It fizzed and popped until she finally managed to blow it out, cheers erupting from around the table and leaving her with a very satisfied look on her face before diving into the stack of pancakes.

* * *

Willa was opening Shorty's late that day, the bar reserved for a certain cowboy-princess themed birthday party for the entire afternoon. It had been a tradition that had started with Gus when she'd owned the bar and that Willa had continued when Gus had retired and moved out of Purgatory, leaving the bar to the eldest Earp sister. Every year since Alice had been born the family banded together to decorate and throw a big party. They'd upped it to two parties a year when Grace had been born, and soon enough they'd have a third. If Wynonna wasn't careful, Doc was going to start getting ideas about adding a fourth kid to the Earp clan. Funny, no one questioned that they were, very much, the Earps, no matter what names were taken as they added to their family.

"Look, Mama!" Alice cheered as she tore free of Wynonna's grip to run into the room filled with balloons, streamers, and a whole set of pink cowboy hats, pink spurs on pink boots, and even pink toy guns on the table in the corner.

Grace looked like she'd already gotten into hers and had added a purple tutu for whatever reason had taken over her attention in that moment. She caught sight of her cousin and Alice tried to pick the tall little girl up to spin her around as they giggled and cheered like they didn't see each other a few times each week.

"What do you think?" Willa asked as she crossed the bar, drying her hands off on a rag and motioning to the room.

"I think that if Doc and Robert made you lift a finger I'm going to make both of them regret it."

Willa cracked a grin. "Nah, they've been good. Had to keep your husband out of my stores though. All these years later and I don't know if he's the best or the worst influence."

"You're just pissed you can't drink for at least another four months." She waited for her sister to shrug noncommittally before flashing a grin of her own. "And Robert never would have worked up the courage to even ask you out, much less marry you if it weren't for Doc," Wynonna pointed out, looking over to where the two old friends were seated at one of the tables and Robert offered a quick wave of greeting.

"We were just talking about that this morning," Willa mused. "I know you didn't like him at first-"

"He gets on my last nerve, and I know that the sneaky bastard does it on purpose. He puts on that innocent good guy act pretty well, but I know better." She shrugged, a smile tugging as her daughter and her niece started swinging each other around in a very excitable game of ring-around-the-rosy. "But he's grown on me. Family."

"Family," the older Earp sister agreed as both little girls toppled over giggling shrilly. "And Robert is a good guy. The best."

"Well…."

"So, how did I do?" Doc asked as he sauntered over, motioning to the streamers and balloons and interrupting before the two sisters could continue the old joke that had lost most of its venom on Wynonna's end. She hadn't trusted the dark haired man that they had met at this very bar. To be fair, Wynonna didn't trust anyone when she first met them. It was one of of her many charming qualities Doc always teased.

"You got the cake, right?"

"'Course, darlin'."

"Smart man. Knew I married right."

He flashed her that grin of his and leaned in for a kiss. Wynonna felt his arm snake around her back as he dipped her down and he didn't let her go even as she started laughing at his antics.

"Mama, can I open presents?" Alice asked from off to the side.

"Once everyone gets here," Wynonna answered, finally tilted back up onto her feet and she took a playful swing at her husband.

Alice made a face at her but Grace had hold of her hand, dragging her over to the boots and hats waiting on the table, all too eager to help the birthday girl dress for the party.

As tiara adorned hats and bright pink boots were donned, the party guests started trickling in, bringing presents and joining the members already there. There were familiar faces like Dolls and Jeremy and those that weren't around nearly as much as they once had been, like Aunt Gus and Michelle Earp who had made special trips into Purgatory for Alice's fifth birthday. Waverly swept in a few minutes after Nicole who had been happy to see that her predecessor in the sheriff's office had managed to break from his retirement fishing just long enough to make an appearance at the little girl's birthday party. Wynonna certainly didn't remember Nedley being such a good sport when she had been a kid, but he took a knee so that Alice could fit him with a pretty pink hat with extra glitter dumped on it courtesy of she and Grace's artistic additions. Dolls just barely missed the same as he shuffled over to where Doc and Robert were leaning against the bar chatting with Waverly and Nicole, but Jeremy was pulled into the newly decided on game of Earp Heir in which, somehow, both girls were the Heir and that made Jeremy the Revenant. They chased him around, giggling and trying to corner him with their little plastic, pink toy guns.

It was perfect, she realized as she wandered over to join the group at the bar, Doc handing her a beer. She couldn't have dreamt up a better scenario if she'd tried. Everyone was happy and safe. It was more than she ever thought possible growing up under the shadow of the Earp Curse, but there they were, and their children never had to worry about having that rest on their shoulders.

"Uncle Robert, Uncle Robert, you're next!" Alice called.

"Next what?" Robert asked, lifting one dark eyebrow over his own drink.

"Rev'nant!" the little girl said and pointed her little toy pistol at him, making shooting sounds as she did.

He didn't move, and Wynonna thought that he might have actually gone a little pale for just half a beat. It was so quick that she never would have seen it if she hadn't been staring right at him, and it certainly didn't seem like anyone else noticed the very brief change in demeanor.

"Okay, we're good," Jeremy huffed from across the room and the girls were on him immediately, much more interest in a target that was willing to run rather than stand there staring at them.

"Hey," Wynonna murmured, drawing Robert's blue gaze over to her, "you okay?"

"'Course," he answered, his voice a little rougher than usual. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"You looked spooked. Just making sure."

He gave her one of his small, tilted smiles and sipped at his beer. "Never been a big fan of guns."

"Boy, did you grow in the wrong town," she chuckled.

"We don't know what happened with Robert," Doc laughed as he slapped the other man on the back. "Always been a little off."

"You're one to talk, Hank."

The boys kept at it back and forth and Wynonna smiled as she listened to their lighthearted bickering, but something tugged at the edges of her mind. She wasn't sure what it was, necessarily, but something had been off, even unfamiliar, in Robert's eyes moments before. It was nothing. It had to be nothing. What else could it be?

"Wynonna, isn't it time for presents?" Jeremy called from across the room, his voice a little desperate now that he'd been caught by two very determined Earp girls.

"Presents!" Alice cheered and bounded towards them without waiting for the go ahead. Thankfully Michelle was close enough to scoop the little birthday girl up and set her in her lap so that she could open the presents in the order they were intended. Any worry, any strangeness was lost to the sound of Alice's laughter and the peace that the family had found.

* * *

Notes: This story popped into my head a couple of nights ago and a little under 48 hours and nearly 5K words later, here we go. Major thank you to [Kimmins](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kimmins) and [SetMeAtopThePyre](http://archiveofourown.org/users/setmeatopthepyre) for bouncing around so many of the ideas with me and helping me work through some of the snags.

I'm really excited for this one. If all goes as planned, there should be some fun twists and turns. I'd love to hear what you think so far :)


	2. Part Two

 

The Sheriff's station was surprisingly empty as Willa made her way in that early afternoon, a hot tea in hand and she hadn't dared pick up a coffee for Wynonna. She knew herself well enough to just avoid the temptation. No alcohol and no caffeine. She'd forgotten how cranky being pregnant could make her.

"Hey, sis, what are you doing here?"

The eldest Earp sister turned to find Waverly standing at the front desk, leaning on it a little as if she had been chatting with Nicole before she'd interrupted. "I was looking for Wynonna."

"Oh, she and Dolls are out tracking down a lead on one of Wynonna's special cases," Waverly answered. "Something about a judge using kids to work illegal angles or something."

"She's been working more and more of those cases lately. You guys get the demons under control?"

"Dirtbag and demon aren't exactly mutually exclusive," Nicole pointed out. "The guy had some serious ties to Revenants back in the day."

"Anyway, I thought you wanted to stay away from all the _Earp stuff_ ," Waverly teased.

"Hey, I served my time with it. Daddy thought I'd be the Heir until you came along and Peacemaker all but flew into your hand."

Waverly gave a small smile and ducked her head. Willa reached out, playfully popping her on the shoulder. "What did Mama always say? Everything has a purpose. You ended the curse and we're all free because of it. Grace too. Anyway, they used to come after all of us. Could you even imagine Robert fighting a demon?"

"I'm kind of surprised he even believes in all of the supernatural," Nicole murmured thoughtfully. "Most people I meet that are from Purgatory are all but brainwashed into ignoring everything that is happening around them."

"He's always been pretty open minded about it." Even so, Willa had plenty to be grateful for in that he'd never been dragged into the fight. He was a stubborn man and loyal as hell. He would have tried to do anything he could to help protect her, and it would have gotten him killed in the end. No, Mama was right, things work out as they should.

"Should I tell Wynonna you're looking for her?" Waverly asked, her voice a little hesitant as she pulled her older sister out of her thoughts.

"I'll catch up with her. She's just going to get the news second."

"What news?" Then it seemed to click. "Oh! You had you ultrasound today! Did you find out?"

Willa's grin only grew. "We did. Grace is having a baby brother."

Waverly squealed. "Have you picked out a name yet? Greyson maybe? Or is that too close? Maybe that's too close."

"Actually Robert and I like the name Wyatt."

The youngest Earp sister paused, her eyes growing just a little bit wider and her voice was soft when she spoke. "I like it."

Willa pulled in a steady breath. "Good, because I was going to ask if you'd be Wyatt's godmother."

Waverly blinked at her, her expression blank. "What? _You_ want _me_ to be…."

"Wynonna is Grace's, so it just seemed… right that you should be Wyatt's. I mean, you are kind of the keeper of all the family history and with us naming him Wyatt-"

"Yes!" Waverly squeaked. "Yes! Of course! I just thought… nevermind what I thought, yes! Wait, what's his middle name? Is it going to be Earp? Or would that be overdoing it just a little?"

A laugh escaped and she shook her head. "We haven't gotten that far yet. Probably not though." Her hazel gaze flickered over to Nicole. "We're asking you too, Nicole. I know you guys haven't tied the knot yet, but you're family."

Nicole's smile stretched. "Definitely. You know I love you guys."

"You hear that, Wyatt?" Waverly asked. "I'm not just Auntie Waverly anymore. I'm your godmother."

Willa groaned dramatically, swatting at her younger sister. "Gah… don't make me regret this," she teased, but suddenly she was being dragged forward as Waverly wrapped her arms around her tightly.

"I love you, sis."

"You too, Waves. Just… keep it quiet until I tell Wynonna? I promised her she'd be the first to know."

"I think she'll forgive you. Anyway, won't Robert tell her?"

Willa tilted her head in question. "Why would Robert tell her?"

"That's where they are, over at his school following up on some of the rumours about the judge," Nicole explained, glaring at the phone on the desk that started to ring.

"I need to get going," Willa offered. "Did you ever decide on a date for that announcement party?"

"I'm thinking the beginning of next month."

"Just let me know. I'll clear Shorty's for you and we'll get Doc to decorate. Who knew the man had a hidden talent?"

Waverly grinned at her and Willa offered her another quick hug before waving goodbye to Nicole who had the longest-suffering look on her face as she told whoever was on the other end of the phone that, again, this was the sheriff's office, not the bakery. Just another day in Purgatory.

* * *

It was amazing how certain judgements lingered long after they should have faded away. Wynonna felt like she was a student all over again as she shuffled through the halls, avoiding eye contact with some of the older teachers that recognized her from her days there. She hadn't been that bad, not really. She had smoked weed behind the gym, skipped a few classes, but all in all she'd been no worse than Willa the year ahead of her, and once they'd both been in high school together they had definitely raised more hell than they had separately, but no one seemed to remember Willa like they remembered Wynonna. It probably didn't help that Waverly followed after, her 4.0 average and perfect attendance a goal that Wynonna never would have been able to reach when she was there, much less in retrospect. Their parents hadn't played favourites, per se, but everyone _loved_ Waverly. The perfect student, the perfect Heir…. Well, that was one thing Wynonna wouldn't envy her sister. She could keep that.

"I still can't believe you actually went to school here," Dolls said, breaking Wynonna from her train of thought. "I mean, like a normal teenager." He was bent over looking at the trophy case like he hadn't seen it half a dozen times since moving to Purgatory years before with the intention of working with Ward Earp to end the Revenant threat in the town. Instead he'd found three sisters dressed in black for their father's funeral after a terrible car accident and the youngest Earp the one able to fire the gun passed down from generation to generation. Wynonna had understood why he stuck it out in their crazy little town for the two years that it took Waverly and Team Earp - as she liked to call them - to take out all of the Revenants, but what had kept the war hero that could have taken his operation anywhere in the world in Purgatory of all places was still beyond her. Not that she was complaining. Dolls had given her purpose in her job. Apparently plain ol' Wynonna was pretty good at taking names and kicking ass, even when some of those asses she was kicking were demons drawn to Purgatory in the wake of the broken curse.

"Sort of normal. I was still an Earp."

"And all that entails. Tell me you weren't a cheerleader."

"You wish. That was Waverly. Willa went out for it one year too, but she didn't last long. Something about an attitude problem." A small smile played on her lips as she remembered how smug her big sister had been when she'd gotten booted. That had been the real accomplishment, not making it.

"Every teacher in this place hates you, don't they?"

"Well, not every one. There are some that don't know me. And I don't think Robert hates me. Kinda hard to get a read on the guy sometimes."

"He's been married to Willa since before I came into town."

"Six years…? No. Five. Between five and six." She struggled to put the memories in order. "They didn't date very long before tying the knot. They started dating after Doc and I did, but got married before us."

"Okay, that part doesn't shock me."

"Why's that?"

"It takes you a while to commit, Earp."

"Hey now, asshole."

Dolls lifted his hands in mock surrender. "Once you figure out what you want, you're all in, but getting there? Don't even try to tell me you're the trusting type."

"None of us are," Wynonna murmured. "I think that's why it surprised us that it happened so fast, but she trusted him. Robert was the exception to every norm Willa had."

"Seems to have worked out."

The bell rung overhead and doors opened all around them, sending kids flooding into the hallway. Wynonna and Dolls were bumped and jostled as teenagers rushed for their lockers. "This was a terrible idea!" she called over and between, wherever she could find a hole to try to shout at her partner.

"Not like we could just call her to the office," Dolls answered, pushing through to get closer to where Wynonna stood. "What'd you say her name was again?"

"Jessica… something."

"Helpful."

"Hey. Alice refused to go to sleep last night. She was determined we needed to watch Frozen at least five times before she'd even consider bed. You're lucky I'm not still sleeping, pal."

Dolls rolled his eyes, but she was sure she saw his lips quirk at the corners before he turned to use his height to survey the running students.

Somehow it was Wynonna who spotted her though, and she reached out to grab hold of Dolls' jacket to drag him along with her. "Hey! Hi. Jessica, right?"

The girl she'd spotted looked over with suspicious blue eyes, adjusting her backpack over one shoulder. She was tall and skinny, her clothes hanging off of her like they were hand-me-downs from someone much more broadly built. "Who are you?"

"I'm Deputy Marshal Dolls and this is Deputy Earp. We just have a few-"

"I didn't do anything and I have a class to get to," the girl answered and started past them.

"We know," Wynonna said as she reached out and latched onto the bag, effectively halting her escape. "We just want to ask you a few question and I promise you get to walk off to wherever you want to go after with a free pass through the class you're supposed to be in if you want it."

That caught her attention and she looked around as if to make sure they weren't being noticed. "The whole thing?"

"Yep." Wynonna could feel Dolls glaring at her, but it was the only way she was going to get this kid to talk. She felt familiar, somehow, like she knew her even though she couldn't remember seeing her before this.

Jessica nodded slowly, positioning herself in a less visible spot of the hall, her stance still tense and nervous. "I don't know what you think I know or what you think I've done," she muttered.

"Oh, we know what you've done. A few B&E's mostly," Dolls said and Wynonna felt the urge to elbow him in the ribs. Hard. She resisted though. Good cop, bad cop.

"Yeah, well, that's not news," the girl grumbled, her fingers playing at a long necklace that caught Wynonna's eyes. A key hung at the end of it, a few beads worked into the necklace itself.

She shook the strangest feeling of deja vu from her mind and focused. They were here to help this kid. The necklace wasn't important. "And you're answering to Judge Cryderman, right?" She watched the girl go quiet at that. "Yeah, I thought so. Real dick. That's the guy we're after. We just need to know if he's asked you to do anything illegal. Anything that he told you to keep to yourself. If he-"

"No," the girl snapped.

"Jessica, we can't help you if you don't help us," Dolls warned.

"I can't help you with something I don't know. So, if we're done, I gotta go."

She shoved past them, not even bothering with the pass for the class. Wynonna looked at Dolls and he huffed a frustrated sigh. "That guy is so dirty."

"Oh yeah."

"But if none of the kids will talk, we can't prove anything."

"I'm not saying I'd be willing to break into his office to find evidence, but I'd totally be willing to break into his office to find evidence."

Her partner offered her a glare that lacked any real commitment to it, but the conversation came to a halt as they spotted a familiar face. Robert Svane, his messenger bag hanging from one shoulder and keys in the opposite hand, paused in the middle of the hallway, peering through his glasses at them. "Hello," he greeted with one dark eyebrow quirked upward and a small, hesitant smile starting at his lips. "Harassing my students today?"

"Trying to catch a bad guy. We were hoping that one of them might have some answers for us."

"Oh, you won't get them to talk to you directly. Not with that," Robert said, motioning to the badge on Dolls' belt. "That makes you the enemy in their eyes."

"And you?"

Robert shrugged. "Depends on the student. Some talk, some don't."

"This one's Jessica. Long dark hair, key necklace?" Wynonna prompted and watched her brother-in-law's eyes narrow just a little as he tilted his head to indicate that they should follow him. He moved towards a room and pushed the door open.

Wynonna hadn't been in Robert's classroom in some time and her gaze swept over the rows of desks, the overflowing bookshelves, and finally came to rest on the framed photo of Willa kissing a giggling Grace that sat on his desk, a small smile working its way into place. He must have caught her looking at it because his own expression had lightened considerably when she looked back over at him. "Found out we're having a boy today," he told her. "That's where I've been, so you caught me just in time. I'd have had a class next hour."

"What do you know about the girl?" Dolls prompted.

Robert pulled in a deep breath, starting to unpack his bag on his desk. "She's in the foster system. I don't know the whole story, but I do know she's been in and out of St Jude's."

"Just Cryderman's type," Wynonna grumbled. "Someone no one would believe even if she'd be willing to ask for help. You think you could talk to her? Let her know we're not trying to hurt her?"

"I'll see what I can do."

She nodded, feeling like there should be more. It was something dancing on the edge of her mind, something that didn't fit or that shouldn't fit, she wasn't sure. After a moment she pushed it back. If she thought of it later, she'd know where to find him. She started to turn, but stopped. Maybe that was it. "Congrats, by the way."

Robert's grin flashed immediately. "Thanks."

"You guys have a name picked out?"

"Yeah. Wyatt. Just act surprised when Willa tells you. She's been lookin' forward to it."

Wynonna found herself smiling too. "Oh I know she has. Doc'll want to take you out to celebrate tonight. Just don't giving him any ideas, got it? Alice is _more_ than enough right now."

"No promises," he offered with a sly wink and she rolled her eyes at him as she turned, Dolls moving with her as they went back onto the trail of a dirty judge.

* * *

Word traveled fast in the Earp clan and just as Wynonna had predicted Doc called for a celebration that evening. The last minute timing meant that only he and Robert actually made it to said celebration, but that worked out well enough. It would be like old times, just him and Robert and a few glasses of whisky between them. It would be just like their undergrad days.

Robert had rolled his eyes a little at that one, but Doc knew the man. He had always needed a little coaxing to loosen up and he relied on Doc to be the one to do it. What better excuse to have a few drinks and smoke a couple cigars did they have than finding out that Grace was getting a baby brother, just as Doc's precocious little niece had predicted.

"I'd say things worked out," Doc said, the words tumbling over each other a little more than they had a drink or two before. "We always said we might as well be family. Who'd've thought we'd marry two of the Earp sisters?"

Robert snorted a laugh, taking a long sip from his own glass. "Times do change."

"Ha. But sometimes you stick with the people who've seen it all." He motioned to the bartender. "You know he shaved most his hair sophomore year of undergrad on a bet he lost? I want you to picture Robert Svane with a mohawk for just a second. Man looked like a damn viking."

"That's his last one," Robert told the chuckling bartender, motioning to Doc's drink.

"Willa know about that?" the younger man asked.

"Oh, she has photos. I made sure of it," Doc assured him. "And one more. We're celebrating, and Robert ain't near drunk enough."

"Wynonna's gonna kill me," Robert managed as the bartender did as Doc asked and refilled his glass.

Doc flashed him a grin and gave a him shove, a little disappointed that the other man didn't tilt any more than he did on his barstool. Nope. Definitely not to their limit yet. "Another for him as well."

"Oh hell," Robert chuckled. "We are _not_ repeating that night before graduation, you hear me, Holliday?"

The grin didn't fade as Doc lifted his glass to toast. "To every decision we've made that brought us here, good and bad, and to little Wyatt Svane."

Every argument that he might have made seemed to wash out of him at that as Robert clinked his glass to Doc's and the two tossed the whisky back in celebration of the newest addition.

Doc watched the other man as they both set the newly emptied glasses down, noticing the slower movements and the clumsy way he reached up to shove his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. There was that limit. He'd seen it many an evening over the years of their friendship. First in college, then when Robert had had visited each other during the darker haired man's master's program and Doc's brief stint through dental school. As different as they were, they'd remained close throughout it all, and here they were, years later, family.

And family took care of each other. He reached into his wallet and pulled out enough to cover both sets of drinks and tip before motioning to Robert. "C'mon."

A pair of icy blue eyes blinked owlishly at him from behind those glasses. "What?"

"You think this is the only thing I had planned? What kinda best friend would I be?"

Robert shook his head and stood a little unsteadily from his barstool. "You're the one that'll hate yourself in the mornin'," he drawled and Doc swung an arm around his shoulders.

"Oh, we'll find somethin' that gives you a hangover one of these days, don't you worry about that. It's on my list of life goals after all the times you've been fine and dandy the next mornin' with me sicker 'n a dog." His friend snorted and Doc grinned, guiding him towards the door of the bar. This was going to be a fun night.

* * *

By the time they reached the end of the main street that wound down to the path that led out towards the edge of town Robert was starting to recover at least some of the feeling in his face and extremities. His steps had steadied out just a little better, or he thought they had anyway, but then all of a sudden that strange sensation of sudden tunnel vision would hit that would screw with his equilibrium. Drinking with Doc Holliday was always a bad life choice. Fun, but a bad life choice.

"You got a lighter on you?"

It took a moment for the words to make their way through his mental filter to make sense of them and Robert looked over to where Hank had somehow managed to turn and actually look at him while still walking forward. Okay, well at least one of them was steady on their feet. "I quit when Gracie was born. You know that."

"Sure you did."

"I did."

Hank offered a shit-eating grin as he pulled out two cigars and Robert shook his head. "I hate you."

"You do not," his friend argued and started digging around in his own jacket pocket with his free hand for something to get them lit with. He held one out and Robert took it.

"So we needed to come all the way out to the town line to smoke these?"

"Nah. Coulda done that back behind Shorty's." He found what he was looking for and the flame jumped up from the zippo.

Robert shook his head and leaned in, letting the flame burn the end of the ready cigar and he inhaled, feeling the nicotine hit and the smoke travel down his throat. Damn. He'd really tried to forget how much he missed smoking.

"We came out to the edge of town because I'm gonna teach you to shoot."

Blue eyes popped open and glared over his glasses, smoke releasing along with the one word answer he gave. "No."

"Yes." Hank lit his own cigar and Robert watched him carefully as he inhaled, his lips twitched upward like he thought he'd already won this argument. "You grew up in Purgatory and never learned to shoot. That's why you don't like guns. You don't know how to use one."

It was only then that Robert caught sight of the pistol tucked away in its holster. More people carried than not in Purgatory, even into the bars, so it hadn't phased him until right then and his thin lips twitched doward. "You're drunk."

"So are you. That's when you make the best decisions of your life."

"Oh that is _not_ true," the darker haired man managed, the words riding out on a chuckle. Funny, he thought he was sobering up a lot faster right about then.

"I promise not to shoot you if you'll say the same," Hank laughed as he started for the fence line, eyes scanning for something along the bushes. It took him a few minutes, but he found a few empty cans from whatever teenagers had come out here to avoid getting caught with their party. He lined them up on the rock fence between the metal bars, grinning as he finally returned, pulling the pistol from his belt and Robert took a very purposeful step back.

"You're drunk enough to see double. Exactly how do you plan to hit-"

The first shot made him jump and the first can, fit between the bars, went flying. The second went after that, and finally a third. Hank looked very satisfied with himself. The fact that Robert was gaping at him probably didn't hurt. He'd always known the man was a good shot, but this drunk? Not to mention at night and between the bars of the old fence.

"Your turn."

"Oh no. I'm more than happy to watch."

"You married an Earp, Robert. The fact that Willa hasn't-"

"Willa was well aware I couldn't shoot when we got married. Hadn't forgotten that in the five years since either."

Hank all but shoved the pistol into his hand and Robert took a deep drag from his cigar. He thought he could use another whisky right about then. "Fine," he all but growled, shoving the smoking cigar into his grinning friend's hand as he shifted the gun from his right to his left hand and back a couple more times, trying to decide which it felt more comfortable in. Neither. Neither was the answer to that question.

"You're a lefty aren't you?" Hank asked.

"I write with my left, yeah. Few things with my right."

"Think they call that ambidextrous."

"They do," Robert agreed and he leveled the gun, wondering just what would happen if the bullet happened to hit one of the bars. He could just see it ricocheting off to one side, doing some damage or the other that he'd never meant. This had to be the dumbest thing he'd done in years. If he thought about it, most of his truly dumb decisions had been made after he and Hank drank way too much. He had the scars to prove it.

Motion to his left caught his attention and Robert spun to look, taking the gun with him and causing Hank to jump back. "Woh, first lesson is you don't point that thing at someone you ain't willin' to shoot."

Robert immediately let the barrel drop. "Did you see that?"

Hank turned, scanning the treeline where Robert was sure that he'd seen something move just moments before. He shrugged. "Probably a bird or a coon. Maybe a deer?"

"Right."

"Don't let it spook ya. Just aim and fire."

"Right," he repeated, swallowing hard and forcing himself to relax. He put pressure on the trigger, steadying himself to pull it, and nearly jumped out of his skin as his phone started vibrating in his pocket. The shot went off and the gun recoiled, leaving him standing there for a long moment just gaping in the direction the bullet had sailed, finally snapping his mouth shut hard enough that his teeth clicked together and he shoved the gun back into Hank's hands. "I shot it."

"You have got to be the worse shot I have ever seen in my life," his friend chuckled, exchanging the gun for the cigar and Robert was much happier for it.

He put the cigar to his lips and inhaled deeply as he fumbled to pull his cell out of his pocket, his fingers still feeling a bit clumsy. Apparently the adrenaline hadn't fully burned the alcohol out of his system. "'lo?" he answered, not bothering to look at the caller ID.

" _Is Doc still with you_?"

Dark brows drew together and he double checked the phone, seeing Wynonna's name and a photo of her flipping him off light up the screen. "Yeah. He's got a phone too, y'know."

" _That'd be great if he would answer it. What the hell are you boys doing? You're not at Shorty's._ "

Robert chuckled, shifting the phone so he wasn't speaking directly into it and mouthed _Wynonna_ in answer to Hank's confused expression. That seemed to confuse him even more and he went searching for his own phone.

"We're at the town line. He thought it'd be a smart choice to try to teach me how to shoot."

" _Yeah? How'd_ that _one go_?" his sister-in-law chuckled.

"'Bout how you'd expect. Hank, you lose your phone?"

"Mustta left it at the bar. Let's head back for it. You're a hopeless case anyway."

"On this, yeah. I do a few other things alright though."

" _You guys heading back then_?" Wynonna asked, reminding him that she was still on the line.

"Yeah, you wanna check with the bartender to see if he's got it. We're…" There it was again. The same movement. It caught Robert's gaze and this time he was certain it wasn't an animal.

"Robert!"

Robert spun when Hank shouted, but it wasn't his friend that was suddenly behind him. He thought he heard Wynonna yell over the phone, but it went flying from his hands as he stumbled back, finding a creature standing right in front of him that was most certainly _not_ human either. Robert hit the ground hard, rolling to his left to avoid the clawed creature that came down after him, and he struggled to his feet as a shot rang out from Hank's direction.

The creature stumbled, hit square in the chest, but it only knocked it back enough to give Robert a chance to put a little distance between himself and it. Hank shot again and a terrible roar erupted from it.

"I think the only thing you're managin' to do is piss it off," he said lowly as he finally got to his friend's side. "I thought all the Revenants were supposed to be gone. Waverly broke the curse. What the hell is that thing?"

"There are still plenty'a demons drawn here. Looks like we found one of them."

Robert couldn't help but stare, the creature straightening itself out so that it loomed over both men's heights. It was ragged, dark, and looked ready to rip them limb from limb. He'd always believed in the supernatural, but seeing it like this, up close and in person, was something else entirely. "We can't outrun that."

"We're gonna have to try. Aim for the line. Maybe it's like the others and can't cross it."

It was worth a shot. It couldn't get both of them at least and if Hank's theory worked out, then they could get across the line and wait for Wavelry to bring her gun and send the thing back where it belonged.

Robert risked a look behind him, spotting the demon making a beeline for Hank who raised his pistol, the gun giving a echoing click proving that he'd used the last bullet in the chamber. "Hey!" he called out, catching the demon's attention and suddenly it was on him. Robert turned and ran.

He made it to the gate and was right at the line, but his boot hit a patch of ice and he felt himself falter. He twisted, trying to catch himself and he felt a burning sensation as he did, but he didn't have time to try to figure out what he'd twisted out of place as one of the clawed hands grabbed hold of the back of his jacket and dragged him back, throwing him roughly to the ground. He hit hard, his head bouncing off the half-frozen ground and the world pulsed around him dangerously, dark spots dancing across his vision. He was fighting a losing battle for consciousness, Hank's shouts sounding further and further away as the darkness closed in around him.

* * *

 

Notes: Well, that didn't take long for them to find trouble, did it? I hope everyone has a fantastic New Years! I plan to get some more writing done this evening :D


	3. Part Three

Doc saw Robert hit the ground and the world stilled for just a moment as his friend bounced and then grew far too still. He waited and watched for him to come around, hoping the blow had just knocked him a little off kilter, but the demon was moving closer and Robert was laid out on the ground unmoving. He'd called the demon away from him. Robert Svane had brought the create's attention on himself to let Doc get away. He'd be damned if he'd let the idiot die for his own stubborn loyalties.

"You and I are not finished," Doc called out as he strode forward, his boots hitting the half-frozen ground with purpose. Anger flooded through him as the thing tuned and snarled, looking torn between the unconscious man and the one moving towards it with the intent to hurt. Doc slid the few spare bullets he had stored away into the chamber and aimed, the shot echoing off and hitting the demon square between the eyes.

He'd seen Waverly put a Revenant down with Peacemaker once. She'd done just as he had, though with Wyatt Earp's gun, and the thing and screeched and cried and clawed at the ground as it had opened up beneath him and sucked him down, hell's own flames dragging him under. That didn't happen that night. Doc didn't have Peacemaker and he wasn't an Earp, much less an Earp Heir. No, that was his spitfire sister-in-law, but he could bring the pain well enough.

The creature straightened after a moment, still dripping blood darker than any human's and its focus was now fully on Doc. It howled into the night and the human felt a chill run up his spine and he took another shot as it rushed him, his aim true and sending it tilting to one side.

Doc waited a long moment, watching, and the thing just lay on the ground and twitched. Maybe it just took more firepower than a human would. That made sense, didn't it? Right. The next step was getting Robert on his feet and both of them out of there. They'd walked. Of course they'd walked. It's not like they'd expected to find a demon on the edge of town and have to fight for their lives.

Robert was just coming around as Doc's knee hit the snowdrift next to him, hands shaking with the rush of adrenaline from the fight. "C'mon, c'mon. Open your eyes for me. That's it. C'mon," he begged, coaxing the other man back towards consciousness.

"What…?"

"You need to get up. C'mon, we gotta go."

Robert wasn't piecing it together and he wasn't moving fast enough. A snarl drew Doc's attention and he saw the thing start back to its feet. He leveled his pistol and shot again. "That was the last one, Robert. I need you to work with me now. I need you to get up, you hear me? You don't, and two precious little girls lose their daddies tonight, and I ain't leavin' you here."

That seemed to bring him struggling back to awareness a little better. "Yeah," he gasped, his fingers digging into Doc's arm as he hauled him to his feet. Robert sagged almost instantly, but Doc managed to get under his arm, slinging it around his shoulders and he put his own around his friend's waist to support his weight.

"One foot in front of the other," he instructed and heard the mumbled reply.

"Hank."

"Yeah?" He looked up, seeing what Robert had, and the cold settling over him had nothing to do with the temperature outside. They weren't going to make it. The demon was rushing them and he was out of ammunition.

The squeal of tires drew Doc's attention. It drew the demon's as well, but not soon enough. Wynonna's truck barrelled into the thing, flattening it under the wheels as fishtailed around, the tires sliding on the ice and she came flying out of it with a machete in hand. And she'd told him that they would never need that thing.

The demon didn't stand a chance with the way it was twitching from being mowed over my the truck and Wynonna was faster than it could hope to be. Doc winced a little as the head rolled, but without Peacemaker they had to get creative.

"Starting to see... why Willa wanted to stay outa it," Robert mumbled and Doc tightened his grip.

"Is he alright?" Wynonna called out.

"Took a hard hit."

His wife jogged to them, leaning in to try to get into Robert's line of vision and catch his attention. "Yo, dummy. Look at me. That's it. How're you feeling?"

"Like I slammed my head on ice," Robert groused and she huffed a short laugh.

"Okay. We'll call Willa on the way. Let's get him in. Doc, you're lucky I don't make you ride in the bed."

Doc opened his mouth to protest, but thought better of it. He could explain after they got back into town and made sure that their celebratory outing hadn't actually landed his friend in serious trouble.

* * *

Robert had never been overly fond of hospitals. It wasn't that anything truly traumatic had happened in one, not as far as he was aware, but it seemed like the worst stories landed a person in the hospital.

It hadn't been until Grace was born that he'd had any good memories to associate with it. It had been a turning point for him when the doctor had handed him the precious little bundle tucked away in pink blankets and those sleepy, pale eyes trying to focus on him. She'd looked up at him, meeting his own awestruck gaze, and he knew that even if he and Willa had more children, nothing would ever quite be the same as holding his daughter for the first time.

This visit might have reset that perfect memory for him though. It was late, they were short staffed, and he had a headache that just wouldn't stop. The longer he laid on the hospital bed, waiting to see if the concussion he'd received would be dangerous enough to keep him there more than a handful of hours for observation, the more aches he found from bruises forming in the wake of what had started as a good night.

As soon as they had done the first quick round of tests to make sure that his injuries weren't worse than they appeared Wynonna had all but dragged Hank out of the curtained off corner of the ER room, leaving Robert alone with his headache and his the waves of nausea that the medication was slowly helping. The bright lights were not, nor were the constant sounds of people moving just on the other side of the curtain. All he wanted to do at this point was go home to his wife and kid and call it a very, very strange day.

He wasn't sure just how long he laid there, finally dozing just a little while he waited, when a familiar voice woke him. He heard Willa asking for him, her tone bordering on frantic. It was strange. In all the years he'd known her, frantic was not a tone he'd heard, even in that horrible week they'd had about a year before when all three members of the Svane household had come down with a bad case of the flu at once and had barely been able to get out of bed, much less help each other. She'd been calm. Cranky, but calm. She didn't sound calm now.

Robert was halfway to sitting when the curtain was pulled back, the rings that connected it to the bar around his little corner giving a loud scratching sound that made him cringe, and he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. At least those had made it out of the scuffle mostly in one piece. He had to blink a couple of times before his eyes focused on Willa, standing where the curtain had been pushed back and she looked… terrified. If he hadn't been sure that he'd heard her frantic before, he was certain he'd never seen his stubborn, brave wife terrified. "Willa…"

The sound of her name shook her from her daze and she moved forward, a hand reaching out for his as she did and he wrapped his fingers around hers. "What were you _thinking_?" she managed.

"Not that we were going to find that there," he answered, his tone hushed. There was a basic understanding when one chose to tie themselves to the Earp family that the things they saw - or, in most cases for Robert, things that he heard of - were to be kept within that circle. Purgatory was balanced on a razor's edge, desperate to stay in the dark when it came to the paranormal and happy to let the questions that they probably should be asking fly right over their heads. Robert had never been very good at letting a question pass him by unanswered, but he could, at least, respect that delicate balance the town kept with the Earps.

Willa reached her free hand to the side of his face and he felt her fingers exploring a few cuts and bruises there. After a moment her expression softened and she loosed a breath, leaning forward and resting her forehead against his. They stayed like that for a long moment, Robert letting his eyes slip closed and focusing on everything that was the woman he loved from the faint smell of her shampoo to the way that the hand that still had hold of his tightened ever so slightly. He soaked it in, focused on it, and reminded himself that they were safe.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

Blue eyes opened again and he pulled back enough to look at her. "What for?"

"This. What you saw."

"You didn't cause that."

She shook her head and moved to sit on the edge of the narrow bed. "Sometimes I think that, even with the curse broken, they know. These evil things…. There's no escaping it. We're cursed even when we're not."

"Hey." He waited until she looked him in the eye and Robert reached a hand up to the side of her face as he kissed her, the movement slow and with every intention of reassuring her. "I love you."

"I love you too."

"And I'm not goin' anywhere. Not so long as you'll have me."

For half a beat Robert thought maybe he'd misread her worry, but then her expression softened and she pressed her lips against his again so that he could almost feel the relief through the kiss.

A moment later they broke at the awkward sound of a doctor clearing her throat. "Mr Svane, I just need to go over a few things and we can get you out of here."

"Perfect," Robert breathed and Willa didn't let go of his hand.

* * *

"I still don't get what went through your head that somehow made going out to the town line to teach Robert Svane of all people to shoot was a good idea," Wynonna grumbled, leaning back against the hospital wall and loosing a long breath from her nose.

"Well, there _were_ several glasses of whiskey involved prior to the decision making," Doc answered as if that were a defense.

"You're kidding, right?"

"Oh come _on_ , Wynonna." He leaned in and her gaze shifted to meet his at the new and much closer proximity, and she couldn't help but notice the smirk playing under his mustache. "You have no room to judge on that one."

"Yeah, we all know I make bad decisions after a few glasses. Robert's supposed to keep _you_ in line," she huffed, running her hands through her thick, dark hair. "Willa's going to kill you. Maybe me too, but definitely you."

"He's fine. Man needs a little adventure in his life."

"Yeah, well, Willa's tried to stay out of all of… that. She wants her family out of it." She glanced down the hall, making sure that their discussion wasn't drawing any unwanted attention. "Did he really try to get the demon to follow him?" She had a hard time picturing her often soft-spoken brother-in-law intentionally calling the demon after him. Well, at least he didn't freeze. She'd seen some people just stand and stare like they weren't about to die.

Doc snorted a laugh. "He did. I was outa bullets and it was comin' on me fast. Probably saved my life." He shook his head and swiveled so that he was standing next to her, joining her as she leaned against the wall. "The idea was to get over the line and maybe it wouldn't be able to follow."

"So he was going over the line?"

"Yeah."

"Did he make it?"

"I thought he did, but I do suppose not since it got hold of him. What are you lookin' at me like that for?"

Wynonna blinked, startled out of… something. She wasn't quite sure what, but the idea of Robert crossing the line seemed utterly and completely impossible for some reason, even if she couldn't think of why. There was nothing to indicate that he shouldn't be able to. It was another feeling in a collection of them that didn't always make sense. Sights, smells, and sounds that were linked to things that they had no business being linked to, like church bells and smoke.

"Wynonna?" Doc murmured, this time sounding a little worried and she shook her head hard, trying to push it aside.

"It's been a long day."

"You sure?"

"Yep."

"Not just pushing me off?"

She leveled a glare in his direction, ready to tell him to drop it in the tone he knew better than to fight, but she saw his gaze flicker over her shoulder and she turned to see Robert and Willa rounding the corner. "Hey, guys," she greeted instead.

"Hey," Willa answered and she looked exhausted. "We're heading over to Waverly's to pick up Grace and then going home." Her gaze turned icy as it shifted to Doc. "You and I are gonna talk later, mister."

"Not his fault," Robert murmured from her side and he had an arm wrapped around the small of her back.

Willa made a small sound that Wynonna knew all too well. She wasn't as convinced as her husband was, but she wasn't going to waste energy fighting them both on it right then. Instead she offered a thin, forced smile. "Are you going to pick up Alice?"

"Here in a bit. I need to go back out to help the boys with cleanup. Doc gets to help."

"Hey now," he started to argue, but snapped his mouth shut almost immediately.

"If you're up for it, one of us can come over tomorrow and get what you remember from it all," Wynonna directed at Robert who nodded.

"Anything you need."

She tried for a smile as they said their goodnights and her sister and brother-in-law made their way out of the hospital. For as close as it had been, the guys had come out mostly intact. That was a win in her line of work, so she wasn't sure why she couldn't shake the feeling that there was more to it.

* * *

Dolls had asked him to make the trip from the sheriff's station across town to the Svane household the moment he'd stepped into HQ. The moment _Dolls_ had stepped into HQ. Jeremy had been there all night going over what was left of the demon that Wynonna had lobbed the head off of. He hadn't meant to, but it was something that BBD hadn't seen yet and before he'd known it Dolls was walking back in and assuming he'd just gotten there early. Wynonna was nowhere in sight and probably wouldn't be for another couple of hours, so Jeremy hadn't corrected him.

After stopping by the bakery to pick up a cup of coffee and a box of donuts Jeremy Chetri found himself standing at the front door of a house that he'd actually never been at. It was surprising, he realized as he looked at the completely unaposing door. Not that he'd been to a whole lot of houses there in Purgatory, but he knew Willa and Robert. Neither of them worked directly with the BBD, but with Willa owning Shorty's and being the eldest of the Earp sisters, they saw them regularly enough and he saw Grace almost as much as he saw Alice, so really, if he thought about it, it was kind of weird that he hadn't actually been to their house.

It took a moment for him to realize that he hadn't knocked yet and he took a big swig of his coffee before setting it on top of the box of donuts and tapping his knuckles on the door. He waited for a long moment, wondering just what time it was and if he should have called. Had Dolls called first? He couldn't remember if he'd said that Robert was expecting him or not. He really should avoid all-nighters in the future.

Finally he heard shuffling behind the door and heard the locks being undone. It pulled open to reveal Willa's husband standing there with a sleepy looking Grace in his arms. The little girl lit up as soon as she saw him though. "Jer'my!"

Robert winced at the shout and set her down when she started squirming. The little girl latched herself around Jeremy's leg in a hug and looked up at him, big hazel eyes more blue that morning than their usual greenish-grey. "Hey," her father greeted. "Wynonna mentioned someone might drop by this morning."

"Is now okay? I brought donuts," Jeremy offered as he lifted the box.

"Daddy, donuts!" Grace squealed and Jeremy saw him close his eyes, a pained expression working its way onto his features.

"Remember what we talked about, Angel? Inside voice."

"Kay," she said in a loud whisper. "Can I have a donut?"

Robert turned his icy blue eyes towards Jeremy and it took the younger man half a beat longer than it should have to realize that he was trying to ask if he had enough to share. "Oh, yeah, definitely. I bought a dozen because I didn't know what you liked."

"Pink with sprinkles?"

"Uh, rainbow sprinkles," Jeremy corrected with a big grin. "The only kind worth anything, amIright?"

The four-year-old gave another loud cheer and Jeremy handed her the box, realizing it might have been an error in judgement to do so only after he'd done it, but Robert looked a little relieved as she raced off down the hall with them.

He motioned vaguely at his head. "Doctor said I got a concussion and it's left me with a hell of a headache this mornin'."

"I can come back….?"

"Nah. Might as well get it out while it's fresh on my mind. Sooner I can put it behind me the better."

"Not a fan of demons?" Jeremy tried for a joke and then mentally kicked himself. "No, of course not. No one's a fan of demons. Who'd be a fan of demons? A demon, I guess, but not a person. I mean, their whole thing is kinda to create destruction and do terrible things. No one would…. Yeah. Sorry. I haven't slept in a while." He ducked his head. Somehow he'd managed to go from just his foot in his mouth to the whole leg.

Robert stood there staring, a hesitant sort of smile tilting his lips like he had no idea how he was supposed to respond to the ramblings.

"Daddy!"

"Uh-oh," he muttered and motioned for Jeremy to follow.

He did, reaching around the shut the front door behind him and following the taller man through the hallway and back towards the kitchen. Grace had pried the door open to the fridge and was struggling to reach the milk on the top shelf, her little arms nowhere near long enough.

"Hey now," Robert coaxed, grabbing it for her. "You want it in your cup?"

"Yes please," came the quick answer and Jeremy found himself grinning at her.

"You're such a good kid, Grace."

"Yep."

"And she's modest too," Robert chuckled and poured the milk into a cup with cat ears on either side and a tail for the handle. "So whatcha need from me?"

"Just anything you can remember. Doc mentioned that there was, uh, some drinking before hand, so…"

Robert snorted. "Have you _met_ Hank? 'Course there was drinking." He moved over to the coffee pot that was full and started making himself a cup. "Went out to the town line 'cause he wanted to try to teach me to shoot. Yes, I'm aware how crazy that is. You try talkin' that man out of something when he sets his mind to it."

Jeremy found himself laughing at that. "Yeah…. Wynonna has some of the wildest stories, and I bet they don't even… yeah."

"I thought I saw something in the treeline, lost it, but then it popped back up a few minutes later. It was…" He looked over to where his daughter had sat herself down at the table with her donut and her cat-cup of milk. "Angel, stay there, alright? Jeremy 'n I need to talk about some stuff."

"Kay," she answered around her mouthful of donut.

Robert motioned and Jeremy followed him off to the living room just off the kitchen where they could talk outside of the direct path of the four-year-old. "The thing was big. Taller than either Hank or me. It was dark out, but it looked like its eyes were…. Black? Sort of like the pupils took over the whole eye. Claws, sharp teeth. Looked like it wanted to tear us apart."

"Doc said you guys were trying to lure it to the line?"

"Figured it was worth a shot."

"Daddy I need a knife!" Grace called from the kitchen.

Robert closed his eyes and reached up with his free hand under his glasses to massage the bridge of his nose. "No you don't," he sighed and turned back to Jeremy. "I got just past the gate when it got me. Not sure how reliable my memory is from that point."

Both men heard the sound of a drawer opening and Robert was moving instantly, coffee cup set down so quickly on the nearest hard surface that the hot liquid inside nearly spilled out. "Grace?"

Jeremy followed a few steps behind, quickening his pace when he heard Robert shout again. Grace looked to have gotten a stool out and had climbed her way up to reach for one of the cooking knives that was set back in its holder supposedly out of her reach. She had her hand on one, but as she turned the stool slipped and she lost her balance, knife in hand.

It happened so fast Jeremy wasn't sure he could believe his eyes. He had thought that Robert was still a step or two away, but the knife seemed to fly out of her hand with too much accuracy for him not to have grabbed it from her. He took another step and caught her before she toppled to the hard kitchen floor.

Jeremy loosed a breath he hadn't even realized he was holding as Robert tossed the knife down on the island and the sobs began. He pulled the frightened little girl up into his arms and wrapped her up, whatever headache he had forgotten to hold her close and stroke her hair. "It's alright. I got you. I got you," he promised her and she buried her face in his shoulder to cry. "Ain't nothin' gonna hurt you, Angel."

Slowly her sobbing evened out to sniffling against him and her little arms were wrapped around him tight enough that Jeremy thought she might start cutting off his airway if she tightened it at all. Once she had settled, Robert glanced over to him. "Not much else," he said softly. "I was out for a minute or two? Don't know how long. You'll have to get those details from Hank."

"Right," Jeremy breathed. "Is she okay?"

"Yeah, she had a rough night too. It puts her out of sorts." He kissed the side of her head and she nuzzled closer. "She gets these ideas in her head and there's no stopping her sometimes. Remind you of anybody?"

"Must be an Earp," the scientist chuckled. "Okay, I'll, uh...Let Dolls know." Dark eyes focused on the taller man. "Okay, this is going to sound crazy, and I haven't slept in like, thirty-six hours or so, but your hand didn't look close enough to grab the knife. Like it just… I dunno, came to you or something?"

Robert shifted Grace and shot him a look. "I think you need sleep."

"Yeah," Jeremy laughed, one hand dancing awkwardly in the air. "Right. I mean, you'd know if you were like, telekinetic of something. Of course you would. That's crazy. You're a normal guy."

"'Fraid so," he drawled, watching him like Jeremy had lost his mind. "Might make keeping this one out of trouble easier."

"Right."

Robert cleared his throat. "If that's all…"

"Yeah. Of course. You have things to do. I'll just call if I need to follow up."

"Thanks."

Jeremy rushed from the house as quickly as he could, unable to shake what he could have sworn was the knife moving to Robert, not Robert to the knife. But that was impossible, right? Right. Of course it was.

* * *

 

Notes: This has definitely turned into a writing weekend, and that's a nice way to start the new year :D

I swear, I was not ready for Grace Svane. I love that kid. And I'm loving Daddy Robert with her. It's just making me smile like crazy every time I get to write it.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the story so far! Reactions or predictions or what have you. Thank you very much for reading!


	4. Part Four

 

"It is actually dead, right?"

Wynonna looked up from the severed head on the examination table. This was _not_ her forte. She wasn't half bad at the actual killing thing - something that had surprised her, even worried her for a little while - but seeing what made the creature tick was definitely more Jeremy's job description rather than hers. The problem was that Dolls had sent him off to go chat with Robert and the BBD-employed inventor had left everything… out. She didn't want to look at it any more than Nicole did. "I think so? I mean, as far as I know we haven't had one come back from a decapitation."

Nicole winced a little at that, her arms folded over her chest and staring at the vacant-eyed head. "Should we call Waves?"

"No," Wynonna answered immediately. "No, she has that thing today. What was it today?"

Nicole quirked an eyebrow at that, but the judgement might have been a little bit premature, because she paused, looking like she was trying to remember exactly where her girlfriend was that day. "She was meeting with her campaign adviser, I think."

"See, you can't keep up either."

"She's been everywhere lately."

Wynonna nodded. "So it's up to us." She risked leaning just a little closer to the head. "You think he's done with it or…"

"I would _not_ touch that."

"Hadn't planned on it, thanks."

"What are you guys doing?"

Both women jumped at the voice suddenly behind them and turned, finding Jeremy standing at the HQ entrance and staring at them. Wynonna cleared her throat. "Dude, you can't just leave the severed heads lying around like that. What happens someday when one of them doesn't stay dead?"

"You said that hadn't happened," Nicole argued.

"Yeah, but expect the unexpected in this crazy ass job."

"Sorry, sorry. Dolls had me out at Robert and Willa's house first thing this morning," Jeremy explained as he moved past them and towards the table. He grabbed for his latex gloves before handling the head, looking at the eyes and mumbling something under his breath.

"How's he doing?" Nicole asked, leaning back against a table just a few steps further away from the one Jeremy was working at with the head.

"Better than this guy here," Jeremy answered. "It was really crazy though. The guy is a _lot_ faster than he looks. Grace got ahold of this knife and I could have sworn he was still a step or two away when he got the thing. Like it came to him or something."

Wynonna's head snapped over to look at him. "Say what?"

"I think I just need some sleep," Jeremy laughed. "I mean… That's not possible."

"You okay?" Nicole asked and Wynonna's gaze shifted over to her, finding the redhead giving her a funny look.

She shook her head. "I don't know… You ever have those things that sort of pile up? They wouldn't be weird on their own, but when they pop up all together over just a few days they feel like more than a coincidence?"

"You've got good instincts, Earp. You should listen to them," Dolls said as strode through the door to the office and waved a file in the air. "I asked for the medical records from Robert's visit to the ER last night to make sure that we didn't need to bring him here for observation if the demon had gotten his claws in him or something."

"And?" Wynonna asked, uncertain where he was going with that.

"So, did your brother-in-law mention anything about getting burned by the thing?"

"Burned? No."

"It had already started to fade by the time that he got to the hospital, so they just barely made note of it-"

"That doesn't make sense," Jeremy chimed in. "If the demon somehow burned him it wouldn't have faded that quickly, and I haven't seen any indication that just, I don't know, touching him or something would have burned him."

"No, but a burn caused by being at the line might have."

Wynonna huffed an exasperated breath. "What exactly are you getting at Dolls? That Robert's some sort of-"

"I don't know. You've said yourself that you have a hard time getting a read on the man. Since the end of the Earp Curse we've seen a decreased number of demon attacks within the Triangle and then suddenly Doc and Robert get attacked, out of the blue. What else have you noticed?"

"What do you mean?"

"You said there were things that had piled up."

"Do you hear yourself right now, Dolls? Robert's weird. He's always been kind of the goofy nerd that I never expected my sister to fall for, but that doesn't mean that he's…." She stopped herself, pulling in a steadying breath. "I've known the man for years. I was in his and Willa's wedding. Hell, Doc was his best man and the two have known each other since their last year of high school."

"Has he ever been out of the Triangle?"

"Sure."

"When? Because from what I've heard both he and Doc went to college in the Big City. The campus is within the Ghost River Triangle."

"So what? Are you trying to accuse my husband of being a demon too now?"

"He went to dental school outside, so I think that clears him," Jeremy murmured and Wynonna turned a glare on him before swiveling it back around on Dolls.

"This is insane."

He caught her eyes. "I learned a long time ago that you have some killer instincts, Earp. If both of ours are telling us that something off about this whole situation, something probably is."

"My brother-in-law is not a demon."

"But something is going on."

Wynonna opened her mouth to argue, but found that she couldn't. She swallowed hard and shook her head, grabbing for her coat and starting for the door.

"Where're you going?"

"I need air," she yelled back and was gone before anyone could stop her.

* * *

She had checked on him half a dozen times already and it was only the earliest hours of the afternoon. He was fine. Grace was fine. Everyone was fine. Willa hated feeling helpless.

As a child she had been told she would be the Earp Heir. It had been terrifying as a little girl to think about looking down the barrel of a gun and killing something, Revenant or not. Growing up for her had meant that she would be expected to, and someday, when she found some poor sucker to marry her and get dragged into the curse with her, her children would face the same fate.

She'd been seven years old when Waverly had been born and there hadn't been any reason to think that anything would change with that, but when her daddy put Peacemaker in her hand it had felt… wrong. It jammed on her every time that she shot it and he had chalked it up to her being too young. Waverly had been five when she had gotten her hands on the gun and the entire room had gone silent as the little blonde girl had put a hole in the front door like it was nothing. Peacemaker had chosen someone different and, selfishly, Willa had felt the relief she'd never even hoped for sweep through her. She was free.

When she was older and she had met Robert, she had distanced herself even further from the Earp Curse. She loved her sisters, but the idea of having her family that she was building too close to that left her with the same sinking feeling that had hung over her childhood like a dark cloud. Waverly had understood and she made good on the promise that she would make sure that the next generation of Earps wouldn't have to worry about fighting for their lives. They wouldn't have to fear for their families.

But she did. Even with the curse broken she did. Robert could have gotten himself killed, and as much as Willa wanted to blame Doc for his antics, she knew he wasn't fully to blame. She might not be the Heir, but she was an Earp. They were drawn to them. All of the evil was drawn to them as long as they stayed in Purgatory. Robert would never want to go and Grace might never forgive her mama for taking her away from her cousin, but with a second child on the way Willa had to think about her family's safety. It seemed more important than every to convince Robert that they needed to leave this forsaken town.

"Got anything good on tap?"

Willa startled and turned from where she'd been leaned against the bar, her inventory list completely forgotten for the thoughts weighing on her, and found Wynonna grinning at her in that way that said something was bothering her and she was doing her damndest to ignore it. "We will when we open tonight. I'm in the middle of inventory."

"Looked like you were somewhere far away to me," Wynonna said and she turned to hop up on the bar.

Willa shot her a withering look. "Do you mind?"

"Not at all. What about something stronger?"

"Will you let me work?"

"Better chance of it."

A sigh escaped her and she rolled her eyes as she ducked down to grab for Wynonna's favourite whiskey and two glasses. She poured and slid both over to her sister. "If you're drinking, you're drinking for me too."

"Fair enough." Wynonna knocked the first one back in one swallow and Willa turned back to the forgotten sheet of paper and started working through what she had.

Silence stretched between them for a long moment and when she glanced back Wynonna hadn't even touched her second drink. She caught her older sister looking at her, though, and leaned back, her palms pressed against the edge of the bar to brace herself. "You want to know something weird?"

"What's that?"

"I can't remember what your husband looked like when he was young."

"You didn't know Robert when he was young. He graduated from high school my freshman year."

"I know, but I know I saw him when he came back to visit. I know that, but I can't remember what he looked like."

Willa shook her head. "He looked like Robert."

"I know. I get that, but-"

"Where's this coming from, Nona?"

She heard her sister sigh heavily, reach for the second glass of whiskey and knock it back just like the first one. It was early for her to be in one of these moods.

"Do you have pictures?"

"At home."

"I don't remember any."

"Well, you don't come over to our house very much. You always want us over at your place or out at the Homestead." She grabbed for a rag and started wiping down the bar, feeling an irrational irritation building in her. "Honestly, I can't remember the last time you actually came over."

"What's your first memory of him?"

Willa stopped, looking over fully now. "What is going on?" she tried again, but Wynonna just waved her off.

"Humour me."

She set the rag down and turned, leaning against the bar and closing her eyes, letting her mind wander back through more than six years of memories that included Robert Svane. Snowy days curled up with him on the couch with their books, waking up to him making her breakfast, and the laughter that filled their home with Grace and that furball of a cat she'd been so determined to adopt. She thought about the day Grace was born and how happy Robert had been to hold that little bundle in his arms, about how scared he'd been before he had that he wouldn't know what to do to be a good father. She thought about his afternoons grading papers and the prayers he said for her each night before bed. Willa's lips tipped at the corners when she thought of their wedding, of Doc giving him hell and of Wynonna giving her a wink when she'd taken the bouquet as the eldest Earp sister had turned to look at the only man she'd ever really loved. She could still feel his hand taking hers, the way his oath to love and cherish her until his dying breath had been so soft that only she could really hear him, and how that promise of forever was just as strong now as it had been then. The memories blurred together, swirling and folding around as she searched for the very first one, happiness flooding through her. Then she remembered light flooding into a room through thin curtains, books piled on a wooden table, and paper swans hanging from a tree growing up through the middle….

"Willa? You okay?"

Hazel eyes snapped open and suddenly she was back in the bar. "Yeah," she breathed, shaking her head. "I saw him in high school, but the first time I really met him was here. You'd just started dating Doc and he brought his friend Robert in. I remember teasing him like crazy because I thought it was cute how the tops of his ears went red when he was embarrassed."

Wynonna nodded slowly. "Yeah. I remember you asking him about the white patch in his beard. You thought he dyed it."

"I did!" Willa laughed. "I'd never seen patches of hair grow white like that before."

"You gave him hell and then told Waves and me you liked it like that. I think you called him quirky," Wynonna chuckled. "Wow… that seems like so long ago."

"It does." She caught her sister's gaze. "Wynonna, what's going on?"

Her sister sighed. "It's stupid…. Dolls is just being Dolls."

"Talk to me?"

Wynonna kicked her legs up and swiveled around so that she was facing the inside of the bar, still up on her perch. She leaned against her knees. "He was asking all these questions today. Apparently Robert had some sort of weird burn that showed up on his medical files in the ER-"

"Why did Dolls have Robert's medical files?" Willa cut in.

"It's fine. It was precautionary in case he felt like we needed to bring him in for observation. Anyway, there was this burn that apparently faded faster than any burn should have. I don't really even know. Trying to put it together now it feels…. Like nothing connects." Wynonna chuckled and shook her head, running her hands through her wild hair. "I think I'm losing my mind, sis. I keep feeling like I'm on the verge of something and then it's gone. Like a dream or something. Did he even have a burn when you guys got home?"

"No, he didn't," Willa said firmly. "What did Dolls think it was? Something the demon did to him? Should I-?"

"Dolls thought he got it from trying to cross the line."

Both Earp sisters stared at each other when the words tumbled out of Wynonna's mouth and Willa felt her temper spark. "Excuse me?"

"I told you, it's stupid."

"Yeah, to say the least. Where the hell does Dolls think he gets off making accusations like that? Out of _nowhere_. Robert is… the best man I've ever known. Even if he did have a burn that doesn't mean-"

"There were other things," Wynonna said, her tone dismissive. "Something about a knife Grace had in her hand and how Jeremy thought he saw Robert pull it - like, I don't know, with his mind or some shit? - rather than grab it away and-"

"When did my daughter have a knife in her hand?"

Wynonna stopped, her mouth snapping shut and an awkward sound emanating somewhere low in her throat. "Ahh…."

"I need to call my husband and you need to go."

"Willa…."

"Now."

"Listen-"

"Now, Wynonna," Willa growled dangerously and her sister swung back around and hopped off the bar. She squeezed her eyes shut and the question escaped before she gave it permission. "What about you?"

"What about me?"

Hazel eyes opened and Willa fixed her gaze on her sister. "You came in here asking me questions about how Robert and I met. Are you questioning him?"

Her silence said it all and Willa shook her head. "Go."

She waited until the door shut behind Wynonna before reaching for the phone and dialing the number. One ring, two, then a third, and finally it connected and she heard a familiar, albeit sleepy, "' _lo_?" from the other end.

"Hey, baby," she said softly. "Did I wake you?"

" _Grace 'n I were just taking a nap. What's wrong_?"

Willa leaned heavily against the bar, finding the room around her a little blurred and she blinked to try to clear the tears. "I just needed to hear your voice."

A rough chuckle sounded over the phone. " _I'm fine, Willa. Promise_."

"I know. I love you."

" _You too_."

She rubbed the heel of her hand against her eyes and sniffed. "Wynonna said something about Grace getting a knife?"

Her husband loosed a breath on the other end. " _Yeah. Jeremy and I were talking about what happened last night and she decided she needed her donut in pieces. She's fine. Everyone's fine. I was gonna tell you when you got home._ "

A small smile played at her lips and she cradled the phone. "I'll be home soon. Almost done here."

He hummed a soft affirmative. " _You alright_?"

"Of course."

" _Really_?"

"Just worried about you. You want me to bring something from the kitchen home for dinner? Just take it easy tonight?"

" _Sure. I'll see you when you get home. Love you_."

"You too. Be home soon." She ended the call and set the phone down. The sooner she got home to her family the better.

* * *

He sat with books open all around him, a notepad perched on one knee, and a pen scratching furiously as ideas wove together from what he'd been reading on that evening. He had hit a dry spell in his writing for the last couple of weeks, leaving him ready and willing to focus on anything else than the job he was, in fact, very good at. It was funny how those things worked out. He'd come so close to missing the opportunity entirely.

Most people had called him John at dental school, not because he preferred it, but because his first semester had just about sucked the soul from his body and he hadn't cared enough to correct anyone about anything. He'd hated every second of it, but he'd plastered a smile to his face when he'd come back for his first visit. He was going to see it through, he told himself. He'd been working towards it his whole life and he'd be damned if he was going to give up so easy.

Robert had called him on his bullshit at the bar of Shorty's, that sly smile of his quirking his lips as he picked out every subtle tell to come to the conclusion that he was absolutely miserable there. They'd talked, and Doc had dared him to come up with a better option, and all Robert had asked was what made Hank happy. What did he enjoy doing if he had the time? The answer was easier than the choice to follow it.

He'd stuck with dental school for the first two years before finally taking a semester off to write and never went back. He'd gone back home to Purgatory and had dug into the roots of the town and found an editor that had eaten it up. Years later he did well with his writing and he had never finished dental school, though his wife's nickname for him had stuck hard and true.

His research had led him to the Earp family and the rest was history. Doc risked a glance over to where Alice was perched on the couch, fixated on a game that had kept her busy for the last few hours while her daddy worked. Her bright blue eyes followed whatever was dancing across the screen and his lips twitched upward under his thick mustache. He stood slowly, creeping over quietly enough that she didn't notice, and he grabbed ahold of her.

"Daddy! Daddy!" she squealed and he buried his face against her cheek, receiving a high pitched giggle for his efforts as he kissed her.

"Got you!"

"No no no!" she giggled and tried to squirm away, but he picked her up and she laughed as he tossed her over one shoulder and spun her around. He stopped a few turns in and received a hard pat to the back. "Again, Daddy, again!"

The sound of the front door slamming shut halted the festivities and Doc glanced at the clock. Damn. He'd let time get away from him.

He set Alice down and tousled her hair. "Go brush your teeth, darlin'."

"But-"

"You wanna get both of us in trouble? Go."

She nodded at that and scurried off towards her bathroom. He smirked and started towards his work space, marking books so that he wouldn't lose his place if they got knocked over. He glanced down at Plucky whose tail thumped as he looked up from under the table. "Smart boy," Doc murmured.

"Doc?"

"In here, love," he called back and heard Wynonna huff.

"Where's Alice?"

"Brushin' her teeth an' gettin' ready for bed. Rough day?"

"To say the least," she sighed, falling back onto the couch and nearly landing on Alice's tablet. She tossed the thing to the side and Doc could feel her watching him as he finished up what he was doing. "Doc, do you have that photo you talk about? The one from college with Robert and the mohawk?"

That peaked his interest. "Somewhere 'round here I've got a copy. Why?"

"No reason."

"Uh-huh."

He could see her roll her eyes out of the corner of his. "I realized today that I don't remember what he looked like when he was young."

Doc chuckled. "He looked like Robert."

His wife shot him a funny look. "Willa said the same thing."

"Well, he ain't changed a lot. Grew his beard out a bit more, got a few more lines in his face. I think we all did." He reached for her, tugging her up off the couch and looping his arms around her back. "'Cept you, darlin'. You're as pretty as the day I met you."

"I'm serious."

"So am I!" She didn't seem to give to the teasing and Doc frowned. "Why you so caught up on Robert young?"

"It's complicated."

"I'm a clever man. Try me."

"Daddy, the peppermint toothpaste is out," Alice said as she rounded back into the den, holding out the tube with a frown to show him.

"Took you that long to try it out?"

"I wanted the last drop," she told him and he chuckled a little.

"We've got more in the cabinet," Wynonna told their daughter and the nightly routine began in earnest. Wynonna set to getting Alice's teeth brushed and Doc took Plucky out for a quick walk. They moved around each other until it was time to put their little girl in bed. A story was requested, the one with the cowboy and the well, and she was out before it was finished, leaving Doc to slink out of her room and to his own.

Wynonna was in the process of stripping her shirt off as he walked in and he leaned against the door frame. "I take it back," he drawled. "I do think you've somehow gotten prettier."

"You think you're getting something from me tonight?" she asked suggestively and Doc grinned.

"Well who would I be to turn the lady down?"

"You're assuming the lady's offering."

He held his hands up in surrender and started towards the bathroom. He didn't quite make it before he felt Wynonna reach out and latch onto the back of his shirt, pulling him back and around. She wrapped her arms loosely around his neck, that look in her eye unmistakable as she pulled him down into a kiss. He sank in willingly, feeling the right kind of chill run up his spine as his fingers traveled down her sides and she hopped up into his arms, never breaking the kiss, and he carried her to their bed.

Wynonna didn't release him as she fell onto her back, but instead she pulled him closer, her arms around his neck and her legs around his middle. Doc felt her shift and suddenly he was being rolled onto the bed, hitting the mattress with a soft _oof_ and she was on top, her long dark hair all around them. For a long moment they were all limbs, his hands tugging at her jeans and hers frantically working at the buttons down his shirt. "So," he managed between increasingly desperate kisses, "you thought about it?"

"What?" she barely asked and he had trouble answering her as her kisses traveled down his neck.

"Little… brother or sister for Alice," he clarified after a long moment.

She stopped and suddenly he was falling back to the mattress. "Seriously?"

"What just happened?"

"You killed the mood, asshole," she growled and shifted off of him, not bothering to avoid a foot in the ribs as she did.

Doc propped himself up. "It was an honest question, Wynonna!"

"Could you just… not, right now? Maybe?"

"We keep sayin' we're gonna talk about it-"

"And we will!"

"When?"

"I don't know. Not _now_!"

"Fine, fine," he grumbled and leaned over to kiss her again, finding a hand in his face and she shoved him off.

"Nope. Lost out on that one."

He stared at her for a long moment before finally catching that she was done. He loosed a long breath and sat up slowly, moving towards the bathroom.

One much-needed cold shower later he walked back into their bedroom to find only the lamp on his side of the bed still on. Wynonna was curled up and looked to be asleep already. He sighed and pulled back the comforter on his side, sliding under it. He'd just switched the lamp off and settled down when he felt her shift, wrapping an arm around his middle and laying her head against his chest. Well, at least she wasn't that angry with him then.

"Doc?"

"Hmm?"

"Can I ask you something and you just answer? Don't ask why, don't try to figure out what the angle is, just answer the question."

Well that didn't sound good. "Alright," he said after a long moment.

"Have you ever seen Robert cross the town line?"

Of all the things that he had expected could come out of her mouth right then, that hadn't made the list. Hell, that hadn't even made the secondary list. "Say what? Why are you so fixed on Robert tonight?"

"No questions, remember."

He pushed a long breath out through his nose. "Sure."

"When?"

"Wynonna-"

"Please."

He racked his brain, trying to remember a specific time that he and Robert had been over the line. A time when he'd come to visit him at school or when…. Doc closed his eyes and it finally hit him. "That teaching conference down in San Diego."

There was a pause and then he felt Wynonna nod. "Right," she breathed, almost in a sigh of relief.

"No chance you'll tell me what that was about?"

"Nope. G'night."

He chuckled, reaching a hand up to stroke her hair. "Goodnight."

* * *

Notes: There are some big things happening in the next chapter. I feel like I should go ahead and apologize ahead of time for the cliffhanger I have planned?


	5. Part Five

 

Waverly had never been one for sleeping in. The moment she had picked up Peacemaker at five and fired the thing, everything had changed. Not in a bad way, she didn't think. The mornings had been early, the nights late, and sometimes there had been surprise practices in the middle of sleep and awake, but that had made sense to her. She had always been fascinated with their family history and knowing that she had a chance to free them from the curse that a demon had unfairly saddled them with gave her purpose. She worked hard towards it and she achieved. It left her with a sense of pride and her family with a sense of safety. Finally, after generations of fighting, they were free, and it had been because of Waverly Earp.

After the seventy-sixth Revenant had been sent screeching back to hell she had been left with a hole, even if it had taken her a while to admit it. She had a loving family, she had a loving girlfriend. Waverly knew who she was and she was comfortable with it, but part of that was fighting for those that needed her and once the curse had been broken how was she supposed to direct that energy into something meaningful? Nicole had been promoted to sheriff when Nedley had retired, Dolls and Wynonna ran the BBD office without really needing her, Jeremy had come up with some of the most fantastic inventions during his time in Purgatory, and Willa - as far away from the demons and the chaos as she tried to stay - always had a place for them at Shorty's. They all had their place beyond just their families, no matter how important that was.

And then the mayor's office had opened up and someone had approached her. Nicole had encouraged her and her sisters had been more than supportive. It was perfect, even if time consuming. She would find that there would be days between actually seeing either sister sometimes, much less finding time to call their mother. They had their lives and she had hers and often those intertwined, but Waverly promised herself on a regular basis to try to make sure that they intertwined more often.

That's why, when her phone rang early that morning, she reached over and hit the accept button when she saw Willa's face flash across the screen. "Hey sis."

"Hey. Are you not up?" Willa asked a little incredulously.

"I'm up," Waverly whispered the half-lie, glancing to where Nicole was grumbling something in her sleep and turning over. "Nicole's just not. One sec."

Willa waited on the other end of the line as Waverly slipped out of bed, her bare feet hitting the cold floor and she wished she'd had the forethought to bring her house shoes into the bedroom the night before. They were… somewhere. Her steps quicked as she aimed for the plush carpet and almost dove for the couch with the afghan. "Okay, we're good. What's up?"

"What's on your agenda for today?"

Waverly sighed, wracking her pre-caffeinated brain for her schedule. "Nicole and I have a dinner tonight, but other than that, I've actually got a day."

"That's good," Willa said, and while it sounded like the word were meant to be cheerful they didn't quite make it.

"Is something wrong?"

"No…. maybe. I don't know." She heard the older Earp loose a soft breath from the other end. "You know every inch of the Triangle. Do you remember a treehouse?"

"Treehouse?"

"Yeah, like a big one. Out in the middle of nowhere."

Waverly leaned back, curling into the blanket and trying to remember if she'd run across anything like that in any of her outings. She'd been over every inch of the Ghost River Triangle when she'd been hunting down Revenants and if there was anything… "The Swan Reservoir," she said after a long moment. "That's right. I caught the Revenant that had been hiding out there down by the creek. He never made it back."

"Could you find it again?"

"Probably. Why?"

"Because I need to see it."

Well that was weird. "Okay?"

"How about a sisters' day?"

Waverly snorted a laugh. "Well, we never did do anything normal, did we? Promise to tell me what it's about?"

"Once I see the place, yeah. I'll tell you all about it. I'll pick you up in an hour?"

"Wha… okay," she managed, glancing at the clock.

"Great. See you then." Willa didn't give her any time to agree, disagree, or anything in between as the line went dead and she was left sitting in the living room of her apartment with no immediate answer as the why her sister was acting so strangely.

* * *

At least once a week Robert and Hank met up, little girls in tow, and let them run as much of their pent up energy off as they could at the park between their two homes. The girls loved it. They chased each other up and down, around and through the playground equipment. Grace flew down the slide and Alice ran up it, Alice ran across the seesaw and Grace balanced out the other end. Their energy was boundless, and even though they would both crash at the end of the playdate, while they were there they didn't see an end in sight.

Hank had been unusually quiet that morning though, the extent of his small talk limited to checking to make sure that Robert was alright after their run-in with the demon and a few odds and ends that tapered off without ever really being a full and complete thought.

"You going to let it eat you all day or you going to say something?" Robert asked after the third attempt to get the same question answered.

"Say what? Oh." Hank shook his head and slouched a little on the bench they were seated on. "Just Wynonna. She's been…. Have you talked to her since the hospital?"

"Hank, my recollection of that night is spotty at best."

He gave a grunt of acknowledgement and Robert thought for a moment that he'd lost him again and about had given up the chase when his friend leaned forward on his knees. "She's been askin' 'bout you."

"What about?"

"First for a picture of you in college and then if you'd ever been over the town line."

"What for?"

"Hell if I know." His gaze shifted over to meet Robert's. "I thought maybe you might."

"Wish I did," he murmured. Questions like that might not mean much outside of the Earp circle, but the significance of someone that couldn't cross the county line wasn't lost on him. The reason why Wynonna would have asked if he could - or had - was what didn't make any sense.

"All I can figure is it has something to do with the attack down by the gate."

"So why not ask me herself?"

"You know Wynonna. She's latched onto something and she'll need to disprove it or prove it herself before she'll let anyone in on it." Hank shrugged. "Not that it matters. I reminded her 'bout that conference you went to down in San Diego a few years back."

Robert ran a hand through his dark hair, smoothing it down in an old habit. "I didn't make it."

"Say what?"

He cleared his throat. "I didn't make it to the conference. That was the week that we all got the flu."

Hank winced at the memory. "Oh, I remember. I thought Alice was gonna have a fit missing her cousin. Well, there's gotta be some time you've been outa town?"

"For school," Robert offered with a shrug.

"Daddy, look!" Grace shouted, drawing his attention to where Alice was pushing her on the swing.

He smiled brightly for her, but his tone didn't match. "Everything I need has always been right here. Plenty of people in Purgatory feel that way. Wynonna plan on accusing every one of them too?"

"She's not accusing you of anything," Hank tried to defend.

"Oh, isn't she?" He saw the way Hank cringed a little at his tone, but he couldn't quite bring himself to care. Wynonna had been known to fixate on some strange things before, but this was an all new low. Well, at least he knew what had set Willa off the night before. She had come home livid at her sister but entirely unwilling to tell him why.

Hank loosed a breath. "No. She's… I don't know what she's thinkin'. Curse is broken, even if you weren't… you."

Robert quirked one dark eyebrow, finally letting his eyes slide closed. This was ridiculous, and he could tell Hank heard it the longer the conversation lingered. Wynonna was looking for trouble in all the wrong places. "I'm not a demon," he huffed after a long moment and Hank actually laughed at him.

"I know."

* * *

She'd been fuming at Wynonna since she had kicked her younger sister out of the bar the day before. There was a lot of shit she would put up with, but attacking her family like that - and there was no question in Willa's mind, an Earp insinuating that a man was a demon _was_ a threat - wasn't something she could look past easily. By the time she'd gotten home she had stewed too long and while she'd done her best to sidestep exactly what Wynonna had said - no reason to put more of a rift between those two than there already was - she had let it slip that she wanted to leave. Robert had just stood there staring blankly at her for a long moment, those expressive eyes of his blinking owlishly from behind his tortoiseshell glasses. He hadn't argued. There wouldn't have been anything that he could have said to bring her out of her rage anyway. The only thing he'd asked was that they didn't make any rash decisions and she had been able to agree to that at the very least.

Willa had hoped that a good night's sleep would give her more clarity. All it had done was filled her dreams with folded paper swans in a treehouse that had come to mind when Wynonna had asked her about her first memories of her husband. Even as she had woken in the earliest hours of the morning with Robert nestled against her back, his breath warm against her neck, she thought she could smell the old stove and feel the breeze through the slats in the wood of the old treehouse. She had thought about asking him, but as she'd turned and found him so peaceful in sleep, she couldn't bring herself to. There was the irrational question that crept in, trying to work its way to the part of Willa's mind where it might be taken more seriously: what if everything was a lie? She shook it off immediately, focusing instead on tracing every line, every angle of his sleeping face. She knew it well. She knew him. Whatever this place was - if it even existed - didn't change that.

So she'd called Waverly. If the treehouse was within the Triangle, Waverly would know. If it wasn't, she could put it behind her and move on for good without ever bothering him with it.

That's how the oldest and youngest Earp sisters had found themselves trudging through the Swan Reservoir in the middle of the morning, the chill sweeping over them and Waverly asking for at least the tenth time if Willa was okay. She brushed the worried tone off as they made their way across the seemingly endless field, reminding her sister that she was pregnant, not helpless.

After a stretch of silence Waverly finally heaved a deep breath. "So, does this have something to do with how weird Wynonna has been the last couple of days?"

Willa glanced out of the corner of her eye. "You've noticed too?"

"Yeah, hard to miss the vibe when I dropped by the BBD. She won't tell me what's bothering her though. I thought it had something to do with the attack…"

The older Earp loosed a sigh, weighing her options. She was angry at Wynonna, but she didn't want this to become a family-wide fight. It was one of the reasons that she had avoided telling Robert all the details. Waverly was different though. She was their sister and the Heir. Maybe she could talk sense into Wynonna.

After. She'd talk to her after.

The chill that swept through her had nothing to do with the wind as they neared a giant tree with something nestled in its branches.. Willa stopped mid-step as she stared at it, the light breaking around it.

"Is that what you were looking for?" Waverly asked quietly.

"Yes," the older Earp managed and jerked forward again, not giving her little sister a chance to ask why. How could she explain that she recognized a place she had never been to or had known about a treehouse that she had never seen? Everything was strange, fuzzy, and as they reached the base of the trunk Willa remembered Wynonna's words the day before. _I keep feeling like I'm on the verge of something and then it's gone. Like a dream or something._ It certainly felt like she was moving through a dream as she reached out, her fingers touching the rugged wood of the ladder.

"Woh. You're not actually going up there are you? That thing does _not_ look sturdy."

"It's fine," Willa answered, the words riding out on a breath as she started to climb.

She could feel Waverly watching her from the ground, but the rungs held firm under her boots and between her fingers as she made her way up. One after another until she reached the little ledge at the top and she heard her sister start after her.

Willa didn't wait. She pushed the door, feeling it swing open and dust immediately flew into the air, dancing in the streams of light that made their way through the thin curtains that were just like the flash of… what? Not memory. No, she had never been here before.

"Between you and Wynonna things have gotten kind of weird lately," Waverly muttered as she made her way to the top of the ladder. "What's going on? What is this place?"

"I don't know," Willa whispered, her hazel gaze sweeping the room. It felt like the entire treehouse was a ghost of sort, a haunted memory, frozen in time yet not really belonging as it was. A bed with quilts tucked into place, a wash bin, and a stove. Books were piled in every corner and the swans… the swans were everywhere. The dust was settling now, floating down and casting a haze over the whole room, and in it she could almost see two figures. One looked like a girl, perhaps a teenager, and she had a similar build to Willa's own when she'd been that age. A man stood with her, much larger, though Willa wondered if his apparent bulk might not be due to the massive fur coat he was wearing. His hair was shaved on the sides, the dark strip left on the top laid down flat, and as he turned, almost as if he could see her, and she gasped as familiar blue eyes found hers. "Robert?"

She blinked hard, fear and confusion enveloping her, and as she turned to ask Waverly if she saw what she was seeing she didn't see her sister. Instead there was another woman there, like looking in a mirror, but her gaze was hard like diamonds and there was blood running down her face from a neat hole between her eyes. "You see?" the ghost-like figure asked. "You can never really go home."

" _Willa_!"

It was gone, just like that. Waverly's scream shattered the illusion and Willa found herself on the floor of the dusty old treehouse, nothing as it was before. The bed was turned over, the mattress ripped to make a warm home for some sort of animal at some point or another. Everything was in shambles as if the owner of the treehouse had left it to rot. Or died. They might have died. Waverly had said a Revenant had lived there.

"Are you okay? Hey. Look at me. Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Willa breathed. "I think so." She shuddered, feeling the cold creep back in.

"What happened?"

Hazel eyes squeezed shut and she loosed a steadying breath. "I… thought I saw something. I don't know what it was," she said softly, the images now unclear in her mind, like they might become as a dreamer woke.

"Why did you want to come here?"

"Wynonna asked me what my first memory of Robert was…. I thought of this place."

"But I thought you'd never been here?"

"I thought I hadn't." She let her eyes slip back open and looked over the discarded room, a soft laugh escaping her. "Oh… how could I forget that? Robert brought me here. It was one of our first dates."

"He brought you to a creepy treehouse in the middle of nowhere?" Waverly asked suspiciously. "This looks like the kind of place you'd hide someone you'd kidnapped away."

"No," Willa chuckled, the memories dancing across her mind and she sank into them. "It had started raining. We were looking for some place to wait it out and we climbed up." She slowly, her feet steadier than she had expected and moved towards the far window. "We had our first kiss here. It is one of my first memories of him. How could I have forgotten this place?"

"No clue," Waverly said slowly and Willa smiled.

"Thanks for putting up with my little adventure. What do you say about lunch at Shorty's? My treat. We can talk about what's been bothering Wynonna."

"I could get behind that. You sure you're okay?"

"Never better. C'mon. Let's go." Willa didn't wait, didn't risk another look at the overturned furniture or the shattered illusion. The happy memories filled her up and she hung onto them like a lifeline. Of all the things that hadn't made sense lately, Robert did. The family she had built did. At least she had that to hold onto.

* * *

She found herself standing on the edge of town, Peacemaker in her hand. It felt… right, somehow, like it had been tailor made just for her. Wynonna had heard Waverly describe it that way sometimes, but she'd never understood until then. As she looked out to the billboard that announcing that those traveling the road were leaving Purgatory she heard the distant rumble of a truck approaching. She couldn't help but feel like she had been waiting on it.

The truck sped past her and Wynonna shifted on instinct, Peacemaker leveled and glowing as the vehicle crossed the county line.

Everything moved on instinct and she was more of a spectator than the instigator. She saw it through her own eyes, but if she had any control over her movements she didn't feel the need to fight for it. Instead she felt the kick of the gun and her gaze followed its path straight for a man in the back of the truck. It was only then she recognized him.

Robert - or a man that looked a hell of a lot like Robert, at any rate. There was something distinctly off about the dark haired man with the massive fur coat in the back of the vehicle - didn't look bothered by the fact that she had just shot him in the face. In fact, he almost looked grateful for it as the flames leapt up around him, pulling at him and dragging him down to hell, that eerie smile seared into her memory as he vanished.

Wynonna suddenly remembered to breathe, pulling in a sharp breath as she jolted upright, the town line replaced by her own bedroom. She sat there for a long moment, bent forward as she tried to make a grab for reality. She'd shot Robert. She'd shot Robert with Peacemaker and he'd been dragged to hell. It had felt so _real_.

"You alright, love?" Doc asked sleepily from the bed next to her.

She looked over to find him staring blearily up. "Yeah. Just need some water. Go back to sleep."

"Kay," he mumbled and he was out again almost before the half word was finished.

Wynonna tossed back the bed covers and slipped into her house slippers, making a grab for a robe as she shuffled towards the kitchen. She was halfway to it when she turned back around, slipped back into the room to grab her discarded jeans from the chair, and was out again before Doc so much as stirred. She hopped into them all the way down the hallway, finally buttoning them into place and grabbing for her heavier jacket to wrap around her shoulders, her boots waiting for her at the door. The Earp-Holliday household didn't stir an inch as she closed the door behind her.

The truck was freezing, but she fired it up anyway, not bothering to wait until the cab heated up to start driving. It didn't really even start heating up until she reached the sheriff's station and hopped back out, fumbling with frozen fingers for the keys. She let herself in through the back and towards BBD's offices. It was dark, deserted, but she knew exactly where she was going. This time there was a determination in her movements, unlike her dream.

Dolls' safe stood in the corner of the office and she punched in the code that Waverly had shared with her once, hearing the lock release and the metal door came swinging open. There was enough ammunition in there to blow the whole building away, including sticks of dynamite that she had no idea how they would have gotten in there. She scanned the rest of the shelves before her gaze landed on a familiar box. She reached in, took it, and walked over to the table.

The latches came unfastened easily enough for her and the wooden lid flipped open, revealing Wyatt Earp's Peacemaker. Ironic how many people he'd killed with the thing. Seventy-six men and women put down in some form or fashion by her great-great-granddaddy and four generations of Earps forced to try to kill them all again before the cycle ended.

Where the number came from, Wynonna wasn't quite sure though. Who had said seventy-six? Wyatt? Josiah? Was it an estimate or a guess? Was there a list somewhere? If there was, it'd been lost by the time Waverly had become Heir. She'd had to hunt them down one by one, their brand showing bright against their skin before she had blown them away. But how did they know there weren't more? It wasn't like there'd been some earth-shattering reaction when the last one had been put down. What if…..

Wynonna had no idea what answers she'd find there with Peacemaker, but somehow she knew that's where they lay. She swallowed hard, looking at the gun she had no right to wield. She wasn't the oldest and she wasn't the Heir. She was just plain old Wynonna. Nothing overly special about her other than the fact that she had turned out to be pretty good at kicking demon ass with Dolls.

Her fingers touched the box, running along the lip of it and she felt her chest tighten, feelings warring within her to both grab the gun and to shove it back in the safe and never look at it again. She pulled in a deep breath, determination winning out.

The shock wave hit the moment Wynonna had her hand on the gun, and suddenly she was on her back, staring up at the ceiling with Peacemaker loosely gripped in her hand. "Oh…. _shit_."

* * *

 

Notes: I'm kind of curious if anyone has any predictions at this point?


	6. Part Six

 

Someone was shaking him. It took a while to figure out that's what was happening, but as Doc surfaced out of the deep sleep, his eyes blinking open with some difficulty, he found Alice leaned over him and her little fingers wrapped up in the the fabric of the t-shirt he'd worn to bed. "Daddy, wake up!" she said as she continued to shake.

"I'm up. I'm up. What is it, darlin'?"

"Mama's gone."

He blinked hard. "What'dya mean?"

" _Gone_ ," the little girl stressed. "Can I have breakfast?"

Doc's sleep addled mind was trying to make sense of it. He vaguely remembered Wynonna getting up in the middle of the night, but she hadn't been leaving the house.

"Daddy?"

"One sec, baby," he managed, sliding out of bed and starting through the house. As Alice had predicted, there was no Wynonna to be found, and the little girl was very put out by the time her daddy finished his search. "Okay, what do you want for breakfast?"

"Cake?"

"Nice try."

She grinned up at him. "Cereal?"

"That's more like it. C'mon." He picked her up and she giggled as he hauled her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and carried her to the kitchen. He got her settled with her favourite cereal and juice before stepping out of the kitchen and around Plucky to grab for his cell phone and clicked the first name on the list.

It rang and rang and rang before Wynonna's voice echoed in his ear. " _You know what to do._ "

The loud beep sounded and Doc frown. "Just tryin' to find where you got off to so early. Give me a call." He hung up and frowned. It was fine. She was fine. Sure, she tended to leave him a note or a text, but that didn't mean anything was wrong.

Doc frowned, the knot in his stomach tightening and he scrolled down the numbers on his phone. He tried Dolls first, thinking that maybe she'd been called out first thing, but that rolled straight to voicemail. Waverly didn't answer either. Finally he dialed a third number.

" _Morning, Doc_ ," Willa Svane greeted from the other end. " _Robert's already left for work if you were_ -"

"No, no. I was lookin' for you. Or for Wynonna, really. You heard from her?"

" _From Nona_? No, not for a couple days," Willa answered slowly, and it clicked that they'd had a fight. " _Everything okay_?"

"I'm sure it is. She was just… gone this mornin' without a word."

There was a pause from the other end and Willa sighed. " _She's been acting… really weird lately. The things she was saying about Robert at Shorty's…._ "

Doc huffed a little, remembering his own vague experience with his the questions that in their own way had been accusations.

" _Doc, is she okay_?"

"I wish I knew. Just… if you hear from her, let me know?"

"Of course."

He ended the call, feeling his shoulders slouch. Wynonna had done some strange things over the years, but this one was going further than he'd ever seen.

"Daddy?"

"Yeah, baby?"

Alice stood at the opening to the kitchen, looking up at him with those big blue eyes and an expression that said she knew something was wrong, just not what. Doc moved forward on instinct, scooping her up and she wrapped her arms around his neck, her mane of dark hair tickling his nose. He stroked it, pressing a kiss to her cheek and she giggled as his mustache tickled her. He smiled against her, soaking in the sound. He'd never expected that being with and marrying Wynonna was going to be easy, that hadn't been the promise. The promise was to love her, through the good and the bad. To be each other's family. Whatever was happening, they'd get through it, and he'd be right there.

* * *

If he could hear the pounding on his front door all the way back in the bathroom in the furthest corner of his apartment, his neighbors sure as hell could hear it. Dolls barely had a chance to shut off the shower and wrap the towel around his waist as he moved towards the door, grabbing his gun as he did. He slid it from the holster, careful as he approached, and risked a glance out the peep hole to see a nervously shifting Wynonna Earp on his doorstep, raising her hand to pound again. "Dolls, I know you're in there! Put your freakin' kale smoothie down and open _up_!"

He slid the locks out of place and ripped the door open almost simultaneously. Wynonna didn't even have a chance to slam her knuckles against the door again. She stood there, a little startled, and her gaze roamed up and down slowly. "Well alright then," she managed.

"I was in the shower."

"Obviously."

"What do you want, Earp?" he snapped. He didn't have the patience for the guessing game after being dragged out from under the hot water and to the front door in nothing but the towel and the cold air making its way into his place.

"Right," she answered firmly and pushed past him into the apartment.

"Sure, come on in." His gaze shifted when he saw something that didn't belong. "Is that Peacemaker?"

Wynonna reached around to the holster attached to her belt, her sister's gun hanging here, and her fingers latched to it like she was afraid someone might try to take it from her. "Yeah. Put clothes on. I can't have a serious conversation with you like that."

Dolls heaved a sigh as he moved past her and into his room, reaching for his clothes and shuffling into them as quickly as he could. He could already hear Wynonna fumbling through his kitchen, likely looking for the coffee she wasn't going to find. As he walked back out, still tugging his shirt over his head, she shot him a dirty look. "What kind of maniac doesn't keep coffee?"

"The kind that doesn't drink it."

"Sacrilege."

"What do you need that couldn't wait an hour, Earp?"

That seemed to bring her back around and her hand went immediately to the gun, her brows drawing together and her lips tugging downward. She swallowed hard as she looked up, those piercing blue eyes meeting his and she held his gaze. "You said you trust my instincts."

"I do."

"Even if it sounds crazy?"

"Earp, we fight demons in a middle-of-nowhere small town that your great-great-grandaddy managed to get cursed. Crazy's relative."

"Fair enough," she sighed and all but fell into a chair, one long leg draped over the arm. It was only then that he realized that she looked like she was halfway in her pajamas, a pair of jeans matched with a shirt that should _not_ have been worn out in the cold. She closed her eyes for half a moment, steadying herself, and when she reopened them there was a determination there that had him taking a seat on the arm of the chair opposite her. "Okay, so I've been subtly asking around about Robert."

Dolls resisted the urge to sigh. "You and subtle have never met. Who were you asking and what?"

"Just Doc and Willa."

He reached up to massage the bridge of his nose, motioning for her to continue.

"Okay, in hindsight, not so subtle. Fine. Neither of them were exactly forthcoming, but honestly I was…. Looking for any reason to clear him. I mean, Robert's Robert, but still. He's my brother-in-law. He's Grace's dad and the freakin' love of my sister's life." She closed her eyes, a pained expression passing across her face and when she reopened them it reached her eyes. "Anyway," she managed, clearing her throat. "I had this weird dream last night. I was… standing on the road leading out of Purgatory and this truck drove by. Robert was in the back of it, but he didn't look like him. He was harder, meaner…. Worse." She winced, shifting in her seat. "I had Peacemaker and it's like I knew something had to be done. I leveled it and just shot. Hit him right between the eyes and he… smiled at me as he was dragged down to hell."

"Damn," Dolls managed.

"Got up, went to the BBD. I just… needed to see Peacemaker. I know that doesn't make any sense, but I knew I needed to, so I did. And then I touched it." she stopped, pulling the gun from her hip. "It's… Dolls this isn't right. This… Purgatory isn't right. It's not real. I think we're under a spell."

"What makes you say that?"

"As soon as I touched it there was this shockwave and I saw _everything_. Everything." Her gaze grew distant and Dolls leaned forward, listening as she spoke. "We didn't meet at my dad's funeral. We met the day I came back to Purgatory for my uncle's. A Revenant tore him to pieces trying to lure me back in. Willa was the Heir, but she… hmm. Something happened, and the gun chose me. Doc and I aren't married, we had to give Alice up, and the curse isn't broken. Bobo - Robert - is a…. He's a Revenant. He was Wyatt's friend and took a bullet to put Bulshar in the ground the first time."

Dolls felt a chill pass through him at the name and Wynonna didn't miss it.

"Bulshar. Clootie. He cast a spell on us. Dolls, we were fighting him and we were _winning_. We were gonna win and that sorry bastard… He cast a spell on us. I think we're in a dream of some kind."

He sat there for a long moment, leaning against his knees and steepling his fingers. He could feel Wynonna's anxious gaze on him as he sorted through what she said, trying to make sense of it. It was crazy. Sure, it was crazy, but that didn't mean that it wasn't true. He pulled in a deep breath. "There are certain… things that happen to the fabric of reality when a spell like you just described is cast. Not holes, but… inconsistencies. No one is going to notice them without looking for them, but if what you just described is true, we can prove it."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. I'll put Jeremy on it. He can find the information I need without spreading this. You-"

"I think we need to bring Bo- Robert in on this."

He blinked at her. "Why?"

"Because the last time something like this happened in Purgatory, Waverly said he was able to break through it. Sorta see through it, I guess?"

"That would make sense if he was a Revenant. He'd be better attuned to it. You're sure that he's…"

"Yeah. Trust me, it was a rough go, but yeah. He's on our side of things. An asshole, but on our side." She stopped. "You believe me?"

"I trust your instincts."

A small smile turned her lips up at the corners. "Thanks."

"If you're right, we need to figure this out fast. Up until a few days ago this was…. Kind of perfect. Nobody casts a spell on their enemies to put them in a perfect world for long."

"Right."

"Keep your phone on you. I'll call you when we find something."

She nodded and stood, folding her jacket over Peacemaker and zipping it up. Dolls watched her as she left without another word. If she was exactly right about this, he wasn't sure, but whatever it was wasn't good.

* * *

It was still relatively early when Wynonna stormed into Purgatory High looking for the eleventh grade English teacher. She ignored the looks and even one teacher that tried to ask who how they could help her. She blew past them all, aiming directly for the classroom that her brother-in-law…. No. Not her brother-in-law. Willa was dead. Whatever was posing in place of her sister couldn't actually be her, right? Wynonna pushed the thought out as quickly as it had come, unwilling to travel down that path.

Instead she slammed into the door, finding it opening easier than she'd really anticipated, and suddenly she was standing in the classroom with thirty students looking at her and Robert quirking one dark eyebrow. "Wynonna."

"We need to talk."

"I'm in the middle of something, if you hadn't noticed," he said, motioning to his students. "Unless you'd like to join in on _Hamlet_."

She shot him a disbelieving look, her brain at war with itself between two realities that seemed equally real in that moment. Dolls hadn't felt so weird. In one he was a celebrated war hero with recognition, in the other he was still a hero, just with fewer praises sung by his former superiors. Robert, Bobo, whoever the hell he was, was a whole different situation though. He stood there, tall and even squaring his shoulders just a little from the usual slump she knew of the Revenant that had carried the weight of a curse he had been trying to outsmart for nearly a century. Bespectacled, but not in the round glasses she'd seen in her vision quest that she'd been on when she'd met his human self. No, these were rimmed and… hell. Bobo Del Rey was wearing hipster glasses. It was enough to make her choke on a laugh. There he stood in his slacks and sweater pulled over his button up like a real teacher. His hair grown out, loafers on his feet, and the wedding band and a pinky ring the only jewelry he wore. He was always so much smaller without his fur coat.

"Start in on the reading, and if you finish, you have that essay that's due Monday that you can work on," Robert said firmly and started for the door.

"Hey," Wynonna snapped as he took hold of her arm on his way out. He didn't let go, even if his grip on her eased up just a little at her protest, and he all but dragged her into an empty room across the hall.

"What are you doing here?"

"I told you, you and I need to talk."

"What could possibly be so-" He stopped suddenly, terror playing on his features. "Is Willa okay? Grace?"

It took a moment for Wynonna to catch up with the sudden and abrupt shift. "Yeah, I guess. I haven't talked to them."

The fear was replaced by irritation. "Then what the _hell_?"

"Okay," she said, holding her hands up just shy of touching him, "I know I've been acting really weird the last few days-"

"Understatement."

"- but there's an explanation."

"Yeah? I spoke to Hank. I'm aware what your little theory is, but _why_ is what I still can't fathom."

"Because you are…." She sighed, pulling herself in. He couldn't remember. Dolls was right, there was no reason that Bulshar would cast a spell over them and put them into dreams that made them happy for their own benefit. No, he was trying to hold them. He was trying to keep them from finding a reason to fight. They were happy and loved and excited to be where they were. Bobo was human and with Willa. The curse had never happened for him. He'd never been betrayed and he'd never worked his way through the decades of suffering that, if she admitted it, Wynonna knew that he'd suffered alone. No, Bulshar knew what he was doing. He'd given the man with the greatest ability to break through that spell the most to lose by doing so. A wife, a child. He'd brought some figment of Willa back for him so that he could believe that he had the woman he loved and the family that… well, that was new, she supposed. It's not like he broadcast that one.

"Because I'm what, Wynonna?" he grumbled, frustration lining his voice and deepening it. She just had to jar him. She had to bring Bobo to the surface and maybe, just maybe, she could break him free.

"Because you're a Revenant."

He stood there and stared at her for a long moment, silence stretching between them. Then, without warning, a chuckle started and he shook his head. "Really now? First just a demon, and then a Revenant? Okay."

"You are."

"Okay."

She swallowed hard. He didn't believe her. Of course he didn't. Why would he? She had to make him. "You are. This… whole thing is some sort of spell that Bulshar cast on us to keep us busy. To stop us from stopping him."

Wynonna thought she saw him twitch ever so slightly at the name, but it could have just as easily been a chill from the vent. "Bul-what?"

"Bulshar," she repeated the name, enunciating and watching his reaction. "The Demon Clootie that Wyatt Earp put in the ground."

"Sorry, I'm not following."

She pushed a sharp breath out her nose. " _Clootie_ ," she repeated the name that Bobo always preferred to call the creature.

Robert shook his head, putting another step between he and Wynonna. "You've lost it."

"No, I found it," she pressed. "I know you don't believe me, but you will. You have to. You are Bobo Del Rey. You're a Revenant that chose to fight against Bulshar, that sided with the Earps. You died helping Wyatt Earp and-"

" _Stop_ ," he snarled and Wynonna's jaw snapped shut when she found him in her face, dark brows drawn together and seething at her. "Wynonna girl, you've done some nutty things over the years, but this takes it. I know who I am. You know who I am. No amount of storytelling is gonna change that." He squeezed his eyes closed, frustration rolling off of him in waves as he all but snarled at her, his voice deeper than usual. Rougher. "There's gonna be a day that you have to choose between what's real and what ain't. Try today."

"There you are," she breathed. "You're fighting it, but there you are."

He pulled back immediately, pinching the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. He was fighting it, and the very small part of her that had become fond of him during their time fighting together hated doing this to him. It was like standing over that innocent man bleeding out on the church floor all over again, except she didn't get any satisfaction from telling him what he was. She just needed him to believe it.

"Okay," he said slowly. "Okay. This has stop. What's it gonna take for it to stop?"

"For you to remember," Wynonna said honestly.

"There's nothing to remember." He closed his eyes, like he was stretching for something. "I'll prove it. If I prove to you that I'm just… Robert - not a demon, not a Revenant, just _Robert_ \- will you let this go?"

"How?"

"Go across the line. That's what started all this bullshit, right?"

"And you'd do that?"

He sighed, the breath leaving him so that he looked like he was deflating. "I love your sister, Wynonna. She, next to our kids, is the most important thing in the world to me. She wants to _leave_ Purgatory. Move. Take Grace and go. I don't want that. Grace won't want that. I know you're not the only thing sending her into that, but you're the tipping point. If taking an afternoon to walk over the damn line for you will set this straight, I'll do it a dozen time over. Just swear to me that when I do that you'll drop this and we can go back to our lives."

He was looking at her with an intensity that could match Bobo's any day and Wynonna found herself nodding. "Okay. You walk over without a scratch and I'll drop it."

"Good. Let me get someone to cover my classes and we'll go."

* * *

Robert barely stopped before he had the key turning in his vehicle and piled out at the county line. Wynonna's truck came to a halt next to his own vehicle and she killed the engine and slammed the door, a look of resigned stoicism blocking all meaningful expressions. She thought she was going to get something else entirely. Hopefully when she didn't she'd drop it and things could go back to normal.

He didn't say anything as he pulled his leather jacket just a little closer around him, the chill biting deeper as they moved away from the vehicles. "You'll drop it?" he confirmed one last time.

"If nothing happens, I'll drop it."

The dark haired man nodded firmly, stepping forward. His shoes gave a soft crunch against the snow as he did and he squared his shoulders back. There was a hesitation, and he wasn't sure why. Worry, anticipation, maybe? That Wynonna wouldn't make good on her end of the bargain. He needed her to. If she didn't, if she kept pushing and trying to turn more people against him for whatever reason she'd convinced herself of Willa would push him to leave. Where, he wasn't sure, but he'd grown up in Purgatory. This was where his home was, where all of his memories were. He'd gone to school in the Big City and hated every moment of being away. All he'd wanted to do was go home at the end and he had. He felt safe in Purgatory.

Step by step he neared the line. The Revenants, all dead and gone, had marked it well. It was funny that Wynonna was so damned convinced that he was one of them. He could tell her that they were gone, that Waverly had killed them all. He could remind her that Revenants couldn't physically sire children, but there was Grace as living, breathing proof, but this… this would end it here and now. This was the best option.

He pulled in a deep breath and stepped purposefully over.

There was nothing on the other side. Just snow and wind and the same air he'd been breathing half a moment before. He rolled his eyes a little, feeling more irked than anxious, and took another step to prove it. He turned, looking back at Wynonna, and he spread his arms wide to show nothing was happening as he took one more step back.

And then it hit. It was a twinge at first, not small but not big either. It felt like a pulled muscle, but it moved beyond that in an instant. It turned to a burning sensation, working its way through him and Robert coughed against it, pausing where he was several steps over the line, and he looked around for the source of the sick joke.

There was none, there was only the burning that was increasing inside of him. His cough turned to a gasp and he started to double over, one arm wrapped around his middle.

"Bobo!" Wynonna yelled and he stumbled.

Suddenly she was at his side, "C'mon, idiot. Stubborn. C'mon."

She led him back over, holding onto him to keep him from toppling over and they crossed back. Nothing eased. He fell to his knees in the snow, one hand buried in it to keep himself upright and the other wrapped tightly around his middle. He felt sick.

"Take it easy," his sister-in-law said from over his shoulder and he jerked away from her.

"Don't touch me," he growled and he saw a slightly startled look flicker through her eyes. "I don't know what you did to me-"

"I didn't do _anything_ to you. This is what you are. _Who_ you are. Bobo-"

He stumbled to his feet. "That's _not_ my name!" he snarled, stumbling away from her. "I don't know what you did, but this is some bullshit. I'm not what you think I am. I'm a good man. I take care of my family, I love my wife, and I love my kids. I'm _not_ a demon. I'm a _good man_!"

"You were. Once," she whispered and he shook his head.

"We're done here. We're done." He didn't give her a chance to argue as he stumbled towards his car and pulled open the door. He just needed to get home. Somehow, if he could just see Willa and Grace everything would make sense. He just needed to get home to his family.

* * *

"Babe?" Willa called as she set her keys on the hook by the door. The house was quiet, still, but he hadn't been answering his phone and when she had called the school they had said he had left early due to a family emergency. Wynonna had been there, and after the discussion that she and Waverly had had - at least tried to have - with Doc that morning about their sister's increasingly erratic behavior, Willa was starting to worry. "Robert, are you here?"

She worked her way through the small house, looking for her husband, and finally found him sprawled out on their bed, face buried in his pillow, and curled into the blankets there. Willa inched forward, not sure exactly what was going on, and when she reached forward to touch his back she could feel the heat from his skin through his t-shirt. He was burning up.

"Robert, hey. Baby, look at me," she coaxed and he curled a little tighter, a moan escaping him like her touch was hurting him. She moved from his back to his forehead and while he was still warm, at least he seemed to relax some with that.

His hair was damp, and it took her half a moment to realize he must have taken a shower when he got in. She pressed a kiss to his temple and he stirred. "Willa?"

"Hey," she greeted softly. "What's going on? The school said you left because of an emergency?"

Her husband groaned and sank down lower. "Your sister showed up. Started in again."

Willa shook her head. This had to stop.

"Left to try to talk her down. I already wasn't feelin' great. We… had to cut it short 'n I came home. Where's Gracie?"

"She stayed at Doc's to play with Alice." She took a seat on the bed with him, her fingers moving through his hair, smoothing it down. "You're really warm. Maybe you should see the doctor. This could be something linked with the concussion and I don't-"

"It's fine." He turned onto his back, wincing as he did, but at least she could see his face now. He stared up at her and reached a hand for hers. "I'm fine. There's been a bug going around the school. I musta caught it. I'll be good in a day or so."

His voice was rough like he'd been coughing, but at least his eyes were clear. She frowned a little and squeezed his fingers in her own. "What did Wynonna want that couldn't wait?"

"To throw accusations 'round," he huffed, eyelids drooping as he settled back in.

"I talked to Waves and Doc. She's been acting weird around everyone."

He hummed a soft sound understanding, but he was already drifting. His grip on her hand had loosened and his eyes were closed, a weak cough escaping him and Willa leaned forward to press a kiss to his forehead. There was more to the story, but she would have to wait.

She started to pull away, but caught sight of something peeking out from under his t-shirt collar. Her brows knit together as she leaned in, pulling it back as carefully as she could so that she didn't wake him.

Burns. They were faded, but they snaked lower than she could see with his shirt on.

He hadn't stirred and Willa moved carefully as she pulled the sheets back, pausing as he grumbled a little in his sleep, but then settled back down. Slowly she reached to the bottom edge of his shirt and lifted up.

More of the same marks wrapped around his middle in patterns that didn't quite make sense. Willa felt her breath catch as she looked at them, and she swallowed hard. They were fading. They would be gone soon, like they'd never been there to begin with. She could only imagine what had caused them.

Robert stirred again and Willa pulled his shirt back down and the blankets back up. She brought her husband's hand up between her own and kissed his knuckles. "I've got you," she promised softly. "Whatever is going on, it's you and me. I've got you."

And she was an Earp. She fought for the people she loved. No matter what.

* * *

 

Notes: So, protective Willa may just kill me.


	7. Part Seven

 

It was strange how things could go from bad to good to great and then suddenly a black hole opened up, ready to suck them all in and destroy everything that they'd worked so hard for with little to no warning that it was coming.

And they had worked hard. Nicole had sat up with Waverly countless nights during her tenure as Heir. Sometimes she would be fixated on a lead, unable or unwilling to let her mind and body rest, while other nights she would wake screaming from her bed, nightmares plagued with screams and blood and terror. Of kills gone wrong and of family members dead because she hadn't done her job right. It had torn Nicole up to see her like that, but in the end, somehow, they had come out on top.

Purgatory was always weird, and there hadn't been any misconception that that would change, but it had settled out a bit more after the last Revenant was pulled into the ground. It had been as close to peaceful as it could get for a while, but everywhere Nicole look, she was starting to see the signs. There were little things, and they weren't all outside of their inner circle either. They were questioning each other, uncertain of each other. They needed to get it sorted out or they'd be so busy tearing each other apart that they'd never see whatever enemy they might actually need to face.

The BBD was deserted except for Lonnie - the one person that really should have been out, since it was his patrol time, but there he sat snacking on a burger from Shorty's loaded with those disgusting pickles - and, from what Nicole could see, everyone else was out. It was quiet, almost deserted, and for just a moment it left her feeling unsettled.

"Did you happen to see Mrs Grandeur's pug?"

Nicole stopped halfway to her office, turning to shoot him a questioning look. "Why would I have?"

"It's missing again. Apparently a lot of dogs are going missing again. Just when we got it under control…" He waved a stack of papers in the air as if that were proof and Nicole heaved a longsuffering sigh. How did Nedley ever make it to retirement without hitting someone?

There was a loud crash from the back of the office space and Nicole looked back. "Is someone here from BBD?"

"Yeah, their scientist. That kid's weird."

The redhead blinked at Lonnie, wondering if she looked at him with enough disbelief that he might actually understand the irony in what he'd just said. Probably not. Instead she turned on her heel and walked back towards the Black Badge Division, tapping on the door and finding the first set of offices completely empty. No Wynonna, no Dolls, but she saw a strange flash from the furthest office and picked up her speed.

Jeremy looked like he had just jumped back, something reacting in his beakers, and he was staring at it. She cleared her throat, still spooking him despite her efforts. "You okay?"

"It shouldn't have reacted like that."

"Okay?" she prompted, but he didn't seem interested in explaining it further. Instead he dove for a tablet, fingers moving across it as he looked up some information.

She inched closer, trying to get a better look. "Is it just me, or have things been weirder than usual?"

"You noticed too?"

"Hard not to."

"Yeah. Funny thing… Dolls has had me looking into a few things for him today, and while I don't think anyone would even notice them on their own, much less be bothered by them, together they are really weird. I mean, crazy weird. Like.. don't fit the fabric of our universe weird."

Nicole was staring at him as he babbled, her brows knit together and she risked a glance over at the charred beaker that had had a bad reaction to whatever he'd put in there. "Exactly what does that mean?" she ventured slowly.

"It means Jeremy needs to learn how to keep his mouth shut," Dolls huffed as he came tearing through the office door, Wynonna on his heels. He looked over to the sheepish scientist. "Find what I asked?"

"And it blew up my supplies. Whatever's going on is _not_ natural."

"Definitely not," Wynonna agreed.

"Hey, Doc's been looking for you since this morning," Nicole said, catching the other woman's gaze. "In fact, so have Willa and Waverly. Where have you been?"

"Doing my job," she snapped and Nicole raised her hands.

"Hey, all I meant is that maybe let your husband know so that he's not calling around the entire town looking for you."

Wynonna shot her another glare and Nicole dropped it, instead turning her attention to where Dolls and Jeremy were speaking lowly about the experiment. She could only catch every few words, but she was pretty sure she heard spell being tossed around and Jeremy was nodding, agreeing with something.

Nicole shook her head. The weirdness factor had just spiked again in Purgatory.

* * *

Wynonna felt like her last nerve had been stepped on and ground under the heel of a boot. She hadn't slept much the night before and she'd been running nonstop since without breakfast, and, now that she thought about it, without coffee. That was unheard of. This really must be a dream.

She slipped out of the office and back towards the kitchen to put a pot on and do what she could to help ease her increasingly frazzled state. Dolls believed her - he seemed to believe her - but that didn't mean he remembered. Shouldn't believing you were in a dream somehow break the dream's spell over you? Apparently not. There she was, stuck like the rest of them in a just-slightly-off version of Purgatory that was too good to be true. That should have been her first clue. Peace? Hilarious. Not for an Earp, and not for the Heir.

Things had not gone smoothly that day. She had no idea how Waves or Nicole were going to respond to the idea that their perfectly achieved lives were… not real. Then there was Bobo - Robert - who had looked reality in the face and flipped it off as he'd limped away. And Doc... Wynonna looked at her phone as it rang yet again. Doc wouldn't understand. Without his memories, the Alice that this world had conjured up was the only one he knew and he might give Bobo a run for his money on how fast he went into denial. He'd see it as running away from their kid, not running towards her.

Wynonna pulled in a steadying breath and finally clicked _accept_ on the phone as it rang. "Hey."

There was a pause. It was brief, but it was there, and then she heard him suck in a shocked breath. " _Wynonna, I've been tryin' to get hold of you all day. Where-_ "

"There was an emergency," she fudged, reaching for the coffee machine and giving it a forceful shove with her hand to kickstart it into working.

" _What kind? You okay_?"

"Yeah, but…" She closed her eyes. She couldn't keep putting him off. They all needed to come together for this, and if Jeremy had found what Dolls thought he had, they did have proof that something was going on. She just needed him to believe her. "You should probably come into the BBD."

" _In? Well, I've got both Alice 'n Grace here so I should call-_ "

"Just bring them," Wynonna huffed, not wanting to get into the middle of the whole chaos that was the Svane situation. If he called Bobo or Willa to come get Grace, Bobo would tell him what'd happened and Doc would come in predisposed against everything that was happening. She needed him on her side. If this really was some kind of a dream spell, fighting the waking process was only going to make it more difficult.

" _To the sheriff's station_?" he asked, his voice hesitant.

"Yeah, they'll be fine. A bunch of us are here. I'm about to call Waves. It'll be fine. Bring them."

" _Alright, love. Are you alright_?"

"Swell. See you in a bit." She ended the call before he could argue and glared at the coffee maker, willing it to fill faster. She was going to need all the help she could get.

* * *

She woke to the sound of the phone buzzing on the stand next to the bed. Willa stirred, coming out of her doze reluctantly and she found herself lying just inches away from Robert who was sleeping obliviously through the obnoxious sound. He didn't even stir, and it was only then that she remembered what had happened that had them in bed mid-afternoon.

Carefully she reached forward, pressing the back of her hand gently against his cheek and then his forehead. He was much cooler than he'd been earlier, and she wondered if she could manage to see if the burns had fully faded or if she would be pushing her luck on waking him. She wasn't sure what they'd landed in, but she needed to know. If she was going to protect him, she needed to know, and she needed him to trust her with that.

Willa didn't get a chance to decide as those blue eyes slid opened and Robert leaned a little into her touch. "Mornin'," he murmured, his voice rough with sleep.

"More like afternoon. How are you feeling?"

He groaned at that, burrowing down deeper into his pillow and squeezing his eyes shut again. After a long moment she heard him push a breath through his nose and they reopened. "Better," he managed uncertainty. "Sore, tired, but better. Not like I'm dyin' quite so much."

That pulled a small laugh from her and she leaned in towards him, her forehead resting against his as they laid in their bed. She would have given anything for this to have just been a lazy afternoon without the cloud of darkness hanging over their heads. "You know I love you, right?"

"I sure hope so," her husband chuckled. "If not, there's been some mixed signals over the years."

Her hand found his and she pulled it up to her chest, her fingers wrapped around his. "And you know I'd protect you against anything, don't you? That you and I…. we can figure anything out as long as we go at it together?"

Robert frowned a little at that. "Willa, baby, what's wrong? It was-"

"I know it wasn't a bug."

"'Course it was. Bunch of the kids at school had it."

"But not you. You never get sick." She squeezed his hand, willing him to believe that she wasn't accusing. "I saw the burns."

"What burns?"

Willa loosed a frustrated sound as she released his hand, sitting up in bed and pulling the covers back. She motioned and after a moment and a very confused look, Robert seemed to catch onto what she meant and tugged his shirt up to reveal the fading marks still colouring his torso. She watched him as he looked at them, turned to grab for his glasses, and pulled his shirt up for a better inspection. "No," he breathed. "No, it was…. _No_."

"Robert?"

"No," he repeated, and she could see he was shaking just a little now. He reached trembling hands up to run through his short hair, knees bent and he leaned forward and against them. "I… I just wanted it to end."

There was a stretch of silence and she reached out. "What to end?"

"Wynonna thinking that I'm some sort of…." He grimaced. "I just wanted to put her suspicions to rest, so we went to the town line. I walked across it to prove to her she was wrong."

"And it burned you," Willa whispered and she could see the way he was fighting against what that meant.

"I don't know what's happened. Willa, you know me. You know I'm not-"

She grabbed for one flailing hand, holding on tight. "I do know you. You're one of the best people I've ever known in my life. Whatever's happening, whatever it means, we're facing it together. I just need you to you to trust me with that. We'll get to the bottom of it. Can you trust me?"

Robert nodded and she shifted to pull him into a kiss. He melted against her, but after a moment he was the one that pulled away, his gaze still troubled. "It's like two sets of memories," he said quietly, his voice strained. "Like one was replaced by the other."

Willa nodded, and for just a moment she could see a treehouse in her memories again and a woman that looked like her replaced with kinder memories of a rainy evening and she and Robert seeking shelter. "I think I know what you mean."

The phone buzzed and she glared at it, finally moving so she could grab it. One message and a missed call from Doc Holliday. She frowned a little and hit play, her husband's best friend's voice sounding over speaker. " _Willa, hey. Wynonna's got me headin' down to the BBD. I was hopin' you'd be able to swing by an' get Grace before I left. Guess they're comin' with me. Let me know when you need to pick her up_."

"Why would Wynonna want him to go to the BBD bad enough that he can't wait for someone to look after the kids?" Robert asked, the suspicion in his voice echoing the same taking over Willa's thoughts.

"Something I'd like to know. Will you be okay if I go get her?"

"I'm going with you."

"Robert…"

"Whatever this is, I'm already in the middle," he said firmly, and she knew that look. It was that same damned determination that said he wouldn't let go of the answers he was after, no matter how much it terrified him. There was an intensity behind those blue eyes that could be overlooked, but she knew better. There was no arguing it. He'd made his decision.

"Okay," she breathed, hating it even as she did. She didn't move for a moment as she watched him swing his legs over the side of the bed, looking only the tiniest bit unsteady, which faded out of his steps as he moved to grab discarded clothes and get dressed.

Well, at least this would be over soon, for better or worse.

* * *

The last few days had been a rush of chaos that had slammed into him, bowled him over, and then come at him again for another swing. Robert thought of himself as a patient man, one that was willing to allow things to play out when they needed to, but as Willa killed the engine and they stepped out of the car and towards the sheriff's station he felt a dread set deep into his chest. It shouldn't be there. He knew who he was. He was a good man that loved his family and kept his faith. He wasn't a demon. There were no more Revenants left.

Willa's hand brushed his as they entered the building and her fingers linked in silent support. Neither of them had all the answers, but they did have each other, despite everything that was happening.

The front half of the sheriff's office was nearly deserted with the exception of one of Nicole's deputies that was being spun around in his chair by two very energetic little girls. They each had ahold of an arm and Lonnie had his long legs tucked up as the spun and spun, giggling all the way until he nearly rocked over.

Grace was the first one to notice that they were there and somehow her smile grew even bigger. She took off without warning, launching herself at Robert and he scooped her up mid stride, pulling her up into his arms as she squealed excitedly and latched her arms around him in a tight hug. "Daddy!"

This was just what he needed. For all the uncertainty, this felt real. Grounding. He held on tightly and kissed the side of her head. "Hey, angel."

She squirmed and he put her down so that she could wrap her arms around Willa a little more carefully than she had her father, but the excitement didn't fade.

"Hi, uh…. Wynonna told me to watch them?" Lonnie tried.

"How about not letting them give you a concussion?" Willa offered with a smirk and turned her attention back to Grace. "Hey, baby girl, we're going to go see Aunt Wynonna and the others and you need to not hurt Mr Lonnie, okay?"

"'Kay."

"Goes for you too, missy."

Alice grinned and made a show of letting go of the chair.

Everyone was gathered in the back offices, Wynonna sitting on a desk, listening to Jeremy explain what he'd found earlier that day. "I mean, it is consistent with an altered state of reality," the inventor said, "but what you're describing is…. I don't know if we've ever seen anything like that before. I don't even know if it's _possible_."

"Hey guys," Nicole greeted, drawing the attention to the Svanes where they'd paused at the entrance. Wynonna, for her part, looked a little surprised at their presence.

"Wynonna was just telling us that we're stuck in some sort of dream spell," Waverly said, though her tone didn't leave any question about where she fell on the belief scale.

"Waves-"

"No, why don't you tell them, Wynonna? Apparently _she_ 's actually the Heir and Robert was some sort of Revenant leader before some century-old demon crawled out of a ring?"

"No, the ring was just a seal and when Bobo broke it Clootie got out," Wynonna snapped.

"Who's Bobo?" Doc asked from his place curled into a chair on the other side of the desk.

Waverly rolled her eyes. "Do you know how crazy that sounds, Wynonna?"

"Because you draw the line at Bulshar but sending a bunch of Revenants back to hell to break Wyatt Earp's curse is just another day, huh? Listen, I get that you don't want to believe it. It's obvious that you would have made a better Heir than me, I'm not saying that, but-"

"Are you listening to yourself, Nonna?" Willa cut in. "Seriously?"

"The whole dream thing kind of makes sense with what you told me about Willa and the treehouse," Nicole ventured, almost as if she were regretting the words as they left her mouth. "You said it was like she was caught up in a dream."

The room erupted into a mess of voices, one trying to be louder than the other until they'd built to an angry argument where no one could hear anything. Robert watched it unfold, never opening his mouth as they argued about what sounded like the most absurd thing possible. They were in a dream. That was the grand explanation. They were in a dream and he was a Revenant.

"Waiting and watching to see how things played out always has been your specialty."

He turned sharply, finding Wynonna had slipped from her perch and was standing right next to him. "Now you're complaining that I don't like to waste my breath on an argument?"

"I mean that you're still you, and I _need_ you to be. I need you to remember because it's not their fault that they can't see through it, but you've got a sense for it that you can use. You think I like admitting I need your help?"

"You really have lost it."

"Here's the thing: my little girl is on the other side of this dream and until I break out and kick Bulshar's ass so he can't come back, I don't get to raise her like I did here, and nothing - I do mean _nothing_ \- is gonna keep me from my kid."

He hadn't seen the gun on her belt, but suddenly it was in his face and Robert took a stumbling step back, raising his hands as he stared down the barrel. "Wynonna…."

The room stopped as Peacemaker glowed in her hands, symbols marked into the barrel in fiery orange, just like it did when Waverly was about to send a Revenant back to hell.

"Holy shit," the youngest Earp sister breathed.

"You can argue it all day long, but you are what Bulshar made you. You want to break that, we get him. Staying here isn't the answer," Wynonna said firmly.

"Wynonna put the gun down," Willa hissed, her hand outstretched but not daring to take a step towards her.

Robert was frozen, staring straight into the muzzle of a gun Wynonna shouldn't be able to wield. It felt like he was standing on the edge of a cliff, a memory almost in reach, but all he could quite hold onto was the church bells in the deep darkness and the glow of the gun.

The shot rang out and Robert flinched. It took a long moment and another couple of shots to realize that it had come from the front offices, not from Peacemaker. It had come from where the kids were.

Suddenly Wynonna didn't matter and Robert jolted towards the door, Willa and Doc on his heels with the rest behind them. He slammed to a stop at the door, eyes wide, and he felt the fear settle deep in his gut at the site of Lonnie laid out, two bullet wounds in his chest, and two men standing there with guns in their hands.

Alice had a desk between one of the intruders and herself, but the other had ahold of Grace's jacket by the hood and hauled her towards him, his eyes flashing dangerously red and his brand showing along the side of his face. She let out a scream and kicked, but couldn't squirm away.

The demon turned those red eyes on Robert. "Bobo Del Rey," he chuckled.

"Daddy!" Grace called, jarring him out of his surprise and his eyes met the glowing red ones.

"Daddy?" the demon scoffed. "Then it's true. You ain't got any idea who you are."

Robert pushed a breath out through his nose and a low growl accompanied it. "Let her go."

"You gonna make me?" came the flippant reply, and he sounded almost giddy as Grace screamed. "Not one more step, any a ya, or I'll snap the kid's neck before any of you could reach me."

The entire room went still, the only sound Grace's terrified whimpers as the Revenant adjusted his hold so he could make good on his threat.

* * *

 

Notes: If all works out the way that I have it plotted out, there should be two more chapters after this one. It's going to be a wild ride, and I really should apologize in advance.


	8. Part Eight

The Revenant chuckled as he adjusted his grip on the little girl in his hands, and if anyone else was moving Robert would never have known. His concentration was on his daughter, zeroed in and focused. An anger filled him. It built, growing quicker than he was accustomed to, and his breaths were coming in low, snarling huffs. She was staring at him with the expectation that any child should be able to have of their father: to protect them.

"Ah," the demon called out, tightening his grip on her. "What'd I say?"

Robert was shaking now. He'd never been a violent man, and he'd certainly never felt such rage overtake him like it was right now. All he wanted to do was jump at the creature and rip him limb from limb. He wanted to throw him across the room and make sure that he was utterly incapable of ever laying a hand of his little one ever again. He wanted to make him pay.

That should have been enough to jar him out of the state, but it wasn't. Instead it only built on itself and he felt that rage rising through him. Something happened as Robert caught the demon's gaze and his confidence fell. He dropped Grace, and as soon as he did a desk came flying through the air, slamming hard into him and pinning him to the furthest wall with it hard enough that it left a smear of brown blood against the wall as the Revenant slid down. It too half a beat for Robert to realize that his hand was reached out and a beat more to understand that he'd been the one to call the desk across the room. He had done that.

"Daddy?" The trembling voice drew his attention and he looked over.

"C'mere, Gracie," he called and she ran to him. He scooped her up, holding her close and relishing in the feeling of clinging to her. She was safe. He had her.

"Daddy, your eyes were scary," she sobbed into his shoulder.

"It's okay, angel," he promised. "I'd never hurt you. You know that, right?"

He could feel her nod against him and he tightened his hold on her.

A shot went off behind him and he spun, having completely forgotten the second one that looked like he had been tearing towards them, but a bullet to the head from Peacemaker sent him screaming into a fiery pit that opened beneath him. Robert turned, finding the smoking gun still in Wynonna's hand. She swung it around, aiming it at the one that Robert had slammed up against the wall with the desk.

"Earp, we need that one alive," Dolls snapped.

"Why?"

"Because he called Robert by the same name you said he goes by outside of the spell. If he's from outside of it, he knows how to break free."

Willa had moved to Robert's side, wiping at their daughter's tears and kissing her cheeks. Grace wasn't the only one crying by this point and Hank had Alice in his arms, trying to comfort the terrified little girl.

Wynonna didn't seem inclined to join her husband, though, and instead moved towards the still-twitching Revenant. She squatted down in front of him and held Peacemaker out so that the barrel touched his face. It didn't take long for skin to sizzle and smoke to rise, followed by a cry of pain. Robert shifted his grip to cover Grace's ears as her aunt spoke. "Hear that? You get to help us break out of this."

A low, pained chuckle escaped the demon. "You think you can make me betray my master? He'll finish what he started and then he'll destroy you. All of you." His gaze swept across the crowd and landed on Robert. "Even you, traitor."

"Uh-huh. We'll see about that," Wynonna growled and the Revenant yelped as she pressed the gun against his skin.

* * *

The Revenant's screams filled the whole sheriff's station and Doc was torn between wanting to hurt the demon that had gone after his daughter and niece and knowing that those same little girls were being more traumatized by being in the room next to it. They'd already seen a man killed that day - Dolls had made a call to some a Black Badge team to handle the removal of Lonnie's body and had put Nicole in charge of overseeing it while he and Wynonna went to town on the Revenant - and had been attacked themselves. They didn't need to see or hear anymore, but none of them could really leave either, nor did they trust any of the usual babysitters that weren't family. The whole thing was a mess.

Alice had fallen asleep in his arms at some point, Grace conked out in Willa's lap a few feet away. Doc glanced over to where Robert was pacing like a caged animal and he knew the feeling. They couldn't go, they weren't being overly useful by staying, and if Wynonna was even close to being right, everything was up in the air. He hated feeling useless. He hated actually being useless even more.

There was a shout from the back room and everyone jumped, Alice stirring against him, and she clung hard as the gunshot went off and the screeching continued, somehow sounding like it was getting further and further away. The sobs started again and Doc stroked her hair, kissing the top of her head. "It's alright, Darlin'."

There was muffled grumbling from the back before, "What'd you want me to do? Let him tear one of our faces off?" Wynonna stormed out into the main office, Waverly on her heels and all attention going to them.

"So what happens if he lied?"

"Then he wasn't going to tell us the truth when we got back. We can't risk him getting away. I did what I had to."

"What's going on?" Willa asked from her place.

"Wynonna, Dolls, and I are going to go look for this… rip in reality that Wynonna thinks the Revenant got through," Waverly answered.

The eldest Earp sister nodded. "I'm going too."

Doc saw the shift, something strange in Wynonna's eyes that he had never seen before when it came to either of her sisters. It was guarded and suspicious, and it was aimed right at Willa. "No."

"Excuse me?"

Wynonna's gaze flickered across the room, almost as if looking for an answer. "Someone needs to stay with the kids." Then that gaze fell on him. "Grab what you need, Doc. You're coming too."

Alice whimpered and clung harder. He shifted so that he could pick her up. "Alice, baby, your mama and I need to talk. Will you let us?"

She shook her head hard and he sighed.

"Alice, why don't you come sit with Grace and me for just a few minutes," Willa offered and Robert moved over, still wound tighter than a coil from the looks of him, but a quick look said everything between the two men that needed to be said and Robert nodded. He was okay. For those kids, he was okay, no matter what was going on otherwise.

Alice went over to her uncle and Doc all but hauled Wynonna to the side. "We need to talk."

Wynonna did not look amused, but she followed, and Doc didn't let go until they were far enough away to be mostly out of earshot. "Listen, I do not and cannot pretend to fathom what the hell you've gotten into your head with this -"

"You don't believe me?" she asked, her voice less forceful now.

"I don't _understand_ it," he corrected. "You're tellin' us that everything we know is a lie and we're supposed to just accept that." He closed his eyes, doing his best to focus on the right words that would let her know that he wasn't trying to stand against her, but he needed answers. "I just need to know what's really goin' on. Between the way you're treatin' Alice 'n the way you're treatin' Willa-"

"What do you mean the way I'm treating Alice and Willa?" He shot her a pointed look and she sighed.

"Earp, hurry up," Dolls called.

"Okay, okay…." She turned her attention back to her waiting husband. "I'll explain that when I get back. Just… if you're not coming, keep yourself safe, okay? Nicole and Jeremy will be here too."

His brows drew together, but the question never had a chance to leave his tongue as she spun on her heel and pointed directly at Robert. "Lucky you, you're coming too. Let's see if we can jog that memory of yours and get that telekinesis working on demand."

"I-"

"Yeah, you don't get to argue this. C'mon."

Doc watched Wynonna file out the front door with the others without so much as a goodbye to Alice and he took a heavy seat next to Willa with the kids. "You got any idea?"

"No," she said softly, "but whatever it is, I don't think it's good."

* * *

She would have preferred having Doc with them. Doc, Dolls, Waverly, and Nicole. That was the backup Wynonna was used to. Bobo was fine. If she could actually get him to remember or admit who he was it'd be better, but at least when put under pressure he seemed to be able to at least subconsciously act like the powerful bastard that she was used to. That had to count for something. Maybe he'd sniff out their tear in reality without even meaning to.

"So, you gonna tell me what's going on with you and Willa or is it the same thing that's been between you two for days?"

Wynonna blinked, Waverly's question pulling her out of her thoughts. "It's… complicated."

"Try me."

Things were different here. Waverly and Willa had a much better relationship in this reality, but when - if, they still hadn't done it yet - they broke free she was going to know anyway, and if things stayed as jumbled in everyone else's head as they felt in hers now, with two sets of memories warring for her version of reality, then it was going to hurt Waverly if she didn't have any warning.

Wynonna glanced to where Robert was walking and pulled at Waverly's arm to add a few more steps for the conversation. "That's not Willa," she said in a hushed whisper.

"What? Of course that's Willa."

"No. It's…. Willa died, Waves. She's gone. That _can't_ be her."

Waverly stopped midstep, her mouth hanging open a little and Wynonna urged her on so they wouldn't draw attention. It took a moment, but she swallowed hard. "Okay…. what exactly does that mean? Is she a demon? A ghost? Does…. oh shit. Does Robert know? What about Grace? What does that mean about _Gracie_?"

"Could you keep it down? Of _course_ Robert doesn't know," Wynonna hissed. "And Grace…. Waves, Grace isn't real. She can't be."

She watched her sister's expression shift from shock to something worse. It hurt to see the sadness sink in that deep. "Anyone else I should know about?" she managed softly.

"Alice-"

"Shit, Wynonna," she groaned.

"She's fine," the older Earp stressed. "That's just not her. Doc and I sent her away with Gus to protect her." She glanced ahead. "Just…. don't say anything, okay? He's fighting this hard enough without…"

"Knowing he's about to lose everything?"

Wynonna winced. "It's not real though."

"Feels real enough. If I hadn't seen Peacemaker react to you like it did…."

Waverly ducked her head and Wynonna saw her struggling with something. "What?"

"Everything seems so different. Nicole and I… are we….?"

"You're happy, baby girl," Wynonna promised, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her into a hug as the walked. "That hasn't changed. You guys are happy."

Waverly leaned into her and Wynonna couldn't bring herself to let go. This world, this dream, felt right. Everything was how it should be, but it wasn't how it was. Reality might hurt more, but it was real, and if they didn't get back to it soon she worried that they'd never make it back at all, and Alice was counting on them.

* * *

Dolls had never been particularly close with Robert Svane. He didn't have anything against him, he just had never found that had a great deal in common with the relatively quiet school teacher. He was Wynonna's and Waverly's brother-in-law. Doc's best friend. Every connection he had to him was at least one person removed. He saw him at get togethers, chatted with him when their paths crossed, but he couldn't say that he had known him well enough to tell if he should have known something was off about him. Even now it was difficult to picture the bespectacled man as anything more. Certainly not a Revenant.

"Got somethin' to say?" Robert all but growled and Dolls thought that might be more natural for him. He hadn't bothered to turn and look at him as he spoke, but he did his shoulders tensed just a little.

"Just wondering how good of an actor you are," Dolls murmured, watching his reaction closely.

"Not good, if you ask my wife."

"Or how good of a liar.

That caused him to swivel around a little, a sharp look in his eyes. "Don't trust me now, Deputy Marshal? After all the years you've known me? After all the years _all_ of you have known me suddenly it's just…. You know, a few days ago my life was perfect. My family, my job, everything. Then this. I don't know what's goin' in, but I do know the thing you're sittin' back and judging me for ain't somethin' I chose."

Dolls pushed a long breath out through his nose. He had a natural talent for detecting a person's BS. He had to for the line of work that he was in, and it had saved his and others' lives many times before. Wynonna thought she remembered everything, but there was no way to know for sure. Not with the spell they were dealing with, and if something about it had warped her memories of what Robert was outside of the dream spell, if he were an enemy lying in wait, he couldn't risk the people he cared about by simply trusting him.

Whatever had happened, though, whatever he truly was, if Dolls was certain about one thing it was that Robert Svane believed every inch that he didn't choose it. He watched the man for a long moment, but Wynonna strode past both of them with Waverly right behind her. "Hurry up, boys. We're looking for a tear in the fabric of reality!" she announced.

Dolls risked one final look at Robert and the man looked like he was being marched to his own execution.

* * *

Nothing about this set well with her. She didn't like the way Wynonna had looked at her or that her sister seemed fixated on making Robert remember something that Willa still wasn't certain was true. There was something strange going on, there was no doubt about it. Maybe it was a spell or just another crazy day in a town called Purgatory that had been cursed so long that she wasn't sure it knew how to not be. Whatever it was, she was ready for it to be over.

"Mama, Mama, look!" Grace called from the window and Willa looked over to where her daughter was pointing, Alice at her side.

"What is it, baby?" she asked and stood, wincing a little as baby Wyatt took that moment to remind her that she wasn't alone.

"It's weird," Alice answered and pressed her face against the glass.

Doc was moving too and both Willa and her brother-in-law stood behind the two children. The street outside the sheriff's station was strangely empty, to the point that Willa half expected to see a tumbleweed blow down the way like an old Western. It was haunting, like everybody in the town had hidden themselves away from whatever was coming, and something inside of her screamed that they shouldn't leave the building. That they shouldn't venture out either. Maybe they would disappear too.

"It's just an illusion, darlin'," Doc said as he dropped a hand down on his daughter's head in a comforting gesture.

"It's scary," she told him firmly and Willa caught the flicker in the street, like light glinting off something, but she couldn't see what that something was. It just looked like open space.

"Nicole still 'round back getting everything settled?" Doc asked gruffly, causing her to turn her attention to him.

"Yeah," Willa breathed

"Okay." He was moving then, towards the door and then out. Willa's protest stuck in her throat as she felt Grace take one of her hands and Alice grabbed hold of the other.

Doc stepped out into the empty street and Willa watched his every move, waiting to see if something would happen. There was nothing for several long strides towards what had to be an illusion, and she was ready for him to turn to her with that goofy grin he got as he shouted out what was catching the light in the way that it was. Instead he stopped, every muscle tensed, and Willa felt the knot in her chest tighten just a little more as the reflection grew so that it looked like a wound opening up in the open space above the street.

Grace gave a small gasp at her side as the hole opened, something like a hand pulling it from the other side, and a creature not too different from the one like Robert and Doc had described from the night they'd been attacked at the town line crawled out of it. It moved faster than any human should have been able to follow and Doc barely got a shot off before it slammed him hard enough into the pavement to knock him a little goofy.

"Down!" Willa hissed to the girls and they dropped to the floor. She took the moment to jump to the shotgun she'd left on a desk in the middle of the room. Once she had it she looked back at the terrified children. "Don't move for anything."

Gunshots rang out in the street as Doc scrambled back from the creature, another following after it and Willa took aim, blowing one of the creature's heads clear off its shoulders. " _Hey_!" she yelled at the other, taking aim. "This is Earp territory. You're not welcome here."

"Shootin' 'em doesn't keep 'em down!" Doc hollered at her. "Not without Peacemaker."

"Sure it does. Those aren't Revenants. I just have to make sure there's not enough of them to heal." She took another shot, knocking the second one back, bloody demon parts flying in all directions.

"Don't think I've ever seen you shoot."

"My daddy thought I was going to be the Heir. He taught me young."

"I can see that."

Hazel eyes glanced over to see the hole closing up, small and flickering again. Nothing else was coming through immediately, but she didn't feel the need to get any closer. "Got your lighter on you?" She saw him nod and she gave him a small, hollow smile. "Torch 'em."

Doc pulled his lighter out and set what was left of the demons on fire. "What the hell was that, Willa?"

"That's what we've been looking for!"

Both Willa and Doc turned to see Jeremy jogging up, two little girls peeking out the window inside the station behind him. Thankfully they hadn't followed him out. "That's the tear. That's the way they've been getting in," Jeremy explained in a rush.

"Yeah, we saw that, thanks," Doc grumbled, eyeing the tear suspiciously, and after a moment he inched closer to it. It didn't change, didn't open back up and swallow him whole, but he didn't seem inclined to poke and prod at it either. "So now what?"

"I guess we need to call the guys. I mean, they're off looking for this thing and it's right… here."

Willa turned, looking back to see the girls with their faces still pressed to the window as if they thought they might come through it and be allowed out with the rest of them. She loosed a breath and gripped the shotgun. "Then call them. The sooner we get to the bottom of all of this, the sooner we can get back to our lives."

* * *

By the time they got back to HQ Jeremy had already started taking readings over the supposed tear in the fabric of the dream world. He was nearly giddy with his findings, but Wynonna could feel the building anxiety from everyone else around her. Waverly went straight to Nicole, wrapping her arms around her and speaking lowly. From the look on the redhead's face, she was telling her everything that Wynonna had told her while they'd been out. Robert made a beeline for Willa and Grace, scooping the little girl up and kissing her cheek until she laughed for him, giggling that his whiskers were tickling her. He smiled for her, teasing, but it didn't quite make it to his eyes. If he was remembering anything, if he could sense something that none of the rest of them could in Willa and Grace and Alice, Wynonna couldn't be sure, but part of her hoped he did. Maybe that would do something to ease the blow once they all got home. It wasn't like making it back would be a walk in the park, and they needed Bobo Del Rey to help them fight Bulshar.

Wynonna was pulled out of her thoughts as something tugged on her jacket. She looked down to see a big pair of blue eyes staring straight up at her. "Mama, there's a puppy."

She resisted the urge to sigh. One part of her looked at the little girl and saw her daughter that she'd raised, happy and healthy and bright, but the other part warred with the reality of it: Alice was with Gus outside the Ghost River Triangle, and would remain there until Bulshar was defeated. They couldn't beat him back until they got out of this nightmare of a world. "Okay," she acknowledged. "Grownups are busy, kiddo."

Mercifully, Alice let her refocus on what was being said, or at least as much as she could follow with the way Jeremy was jumping around in his explanation. He would pose a theory, refute it, and then think out loud for the next minute or two until someone dragged him back on topic. From what she could tell it boiled down to the fact that he wasn't sure they could pull the tear open from their end and he wasn't even sure that whatever was connecting the dream world to their reality was, in fact, fully connected. "I mean, it could lead anywhere, technically."

"Helpful, Jeremy," Dolls grumbled.

The scientist opened his mouth to respond, but a loud shriek from outside cut him off. Everyone turned, scanning the room, but it was Willa that put it together. "Where are the kids?"

Wynonna had to move in order not to get knocked over as everyone bolted for the front door that had been left hanging open when the girls had presumably walked out of it. She steeled herself, feeling the rising panic building and reminded herself again and again that the little girl that looked so much like her daddy was not _actually_ their daughter. No matter what happened, Alice was safe.

It was Grace that had screamed and she was still screaming even as Robert raced towards her, scooping her up and staring with eyes wide behind his glasses, stepping back with her held protectively in his arms. Alice hadn't made a sound, but she was standing right next to the tear, a bedraggled dog at her feet, and Wynonna felt like she'd been kicked in the gut as she watched Alice pulse in and out, fading and growing solid once more in time with the tear. It was terrifying to watch, everything that she knew about this world put on display in front of the others, causing them to freeze where they were as they watched the proof with their own eyes.

Doc was the one who broke free, calling Alice's name out and she turned, seemingly oblivious, until her little nose screwed up looking at him. He leapt for her and pulled her away, and Wynonna hadn't seen that look in his eyes since he had put her on a helicopter that had taken her away. She remembered him sitting out there in the field, the pain and the anguish written deeply into his features, and he'd looked so broken in that moment. Now, as he cradled the child he thought was his daughter, she could see reality working its way painfully in. "It's okay, darlin'. You're alright. C'mon, you're alright."

"Holy crap," Jeremy managed and Wynonna watched Alice return to normal as Doc backed away. "That's it. That's why it looks like it's flickering in and out."

"What is?" Nicole asked quietly.

"The tear is disrupting the fabric of this world, right? Nothing from this world can get anywhere near it without… fading. In and out. Reality's seeping in, like water making it through the racks in a dam. It just needs… a jolt. A hit."

"Belief," Wynonna managed, her voice hoarse and strained. "It needs us to believe this is a dream and wake up."

"Exactly."

Doc cleared his throat, struggling to speak. "But why was Alice….?"

Jeremy winced at that, opening and closing his mouth, unable to find the words needed to explain.

Wynonna squeezed her eyes shut and when she opened them again, tears blurred her vision as she moved towards Doc and the little girl that she hoped Alice would become someday. She felt one of the hot tears make its way down her cheek as she looked at her, all perfect round face and bright blue eyes. Beautiful. Happy. She wanted to hold on, really she did, but their daughter needed them. "Because she's not really here. She's…waiting on us to come home. "

"'Course she's here," Doc croaked. "Look at her. Wynonna, look at her. She's right _here_!"

Alice didn't flinch at Doc's tone, but was looking at Wynonna with the strangest expression that the younger mother had ever seen. It was like she knew, somehow, and she reached for her. "It's okay, Mama. Don't cry."

Wynonna tried for a smile, reaching up to cover the little hand with her own and she pressed a kiss to it. For just a moment, she could hope that Alice could really hear her. "You know you are the most special thing to me in the whole world, right? I need you to know that."

The little girl nodded and smiled brightly. "Love you, Mama. Come get me?"

"As soon as I can," Wynonna promised and leaned forward, a sob shaking her frame as she pressed a kiss to Alice's forehead and she heard could hear Doc choke on his own.

As she pulled away Alice was gone, Doc's arms empty and he pulled in a struggling breath as a shockwave slammed outward from the tear and knocked everyone to the ground.

* * *

The blow had sent him flying off his feet, slamming him hard into the ground and he knew he was going to get up with another headache. Blue eyes blinked painfully open and he found his glasses askew, one lense cracked, and Grace no longer in his arms. Robert scurried to his feet, panic abated as he saw the little girl only a couple of feet away, sitting up and crying. She was alright. She was there. The blow had taken her away like it had….

Alice.

Alice Earp. The next Earp Heir if Wynonna failed and if the world lived long enough for the kid to see her twenty-seventh birthday. Alice Earp wasn't even a year old yet. He'd never seen her, never met her, even if he had been back from his relatively brief trip to hell that Wynonna had sent him on when the kid had been born.

Memories slammed into him, mixing and swirling and climbing over one another, jumbled in his head between the life he'd lived and the one he'd dreamed into existence. He was a Revenant. Not just any Revenant, but one that had held a firm control over the others for nearly a century. He had been Wyatt Earp's friend, he'd died to put Clootie in the ground, and he'd been cursed for it. Betrayed, turned on, and he'd struggled through more years alone than not, until very, very recently.

"Robert?"

He turned, regretting the sudden movement, but his gaze fell on Willa who was struggling to sit up and wincing as she did, her hand moving to the back of her head. She blinked hard and for just a moment he was back at the edge of town, the explosion having gone off in his face and ripping skin and muscle down to the bone, and Willa…. Willa's voice echoing beyond the line…. He shook his head hard, pushing the memory back and others filled the void easily enough. Their wedding, Grace's birth, mornings and evenings and nights together. Those memories had happened. Those memories were real. She was real. Grace was real. They were _real_.

"Holy shit," she whispered, looking around. "Holy shit. Robert."

He followed her gaze to see that the tear had ripped open, gaping and wide now, and on the other side he could see the main street, though it looked different. Clearer, somehow, than the one that he was still currently seated on.

"That's it," Wynonna said as she stood. "That's our way home. We have to go."

"I remember," Waverly murmured as she made it to her feet, helping Nicole as she did. "How could I forget everything we've done? Everything we've fought for?"

"If there's a way home, that's it," Jeremy agreed. The ground gave a shudder beneath them and his dark eyes widened a little. "There's no telling how long it'll stay open, though, and this world… We remember, and that's like waking up. It's not going to last."

"Meaning we gotta go," Doc said, his voice still rough.

Robert - Bobo, he hadn't really been Robert in a long time, had he? - slowly crawled to his feet. He turned to see Willa picking Grace up and there was more sadness in her eyes than he was sure he'd ever seen. She knew.

"Mama, Alice disappeared," Grace said uncertainty. "Am I not real too?"

It felt like a knife to the gut hearing his little girl ask the question and Willa gave her a strained smile, kissing the side of her head. "Of course your real, baby girl. Your daddy and I love you more than life itself. How could you love a dream that much?"

"Are you going away?"

"I'm not," she assured her, her gaze flickering up to meet Bobo's, "but your daddy is. He has to. That doesn't mean he loves you any less."

" _Bobo_!"

He turned, finding that Dolls, Jeremy, and Nicole had already gone through. Wynonna had shouted at him, Waverly at her side, and he felt his chest tighten. Doc Holliday was moving towards them, but between the way the world was trembling around them, breaking and crumbling, and the winds picking up, he couldn't hear what was being said. Instead he turned back to Willa. His Willa, and she smiled for him, her free hand that wasn't holding onto their little girl cupping one side of his face. "I love you. I always did, even if I didn't know how to show it some days."

"I'm not going." The words tumbled out and he turned, kissing the palm of her hand still resting against his face. "I'm not going."

"You have to."

"No, I don't. And I won't. Just once, I'm choosing this." He leaned in and down, pressing a kiss to Grace's head. He just had to hold on to it and he could stay. He had to remember the purple panda jammies and the little unicorn slippers. That stupid cat and the playdates at the park. Her laughter. His little girl's laughter. He would never forget it, and he would never feel more human than when he heard it. He had to stay.

"I know you would if you could, but you don't belong here. You promised to help them, didn't you?"

"Don't matter." He huffed a mirthless laugh. "What has helping the Earps ever gotten me anyway? Dead. It got me dead, and you…. Willa you and Grace are everything to me and you _cannot_ convince me you're not right here." His vision blurred and he blinked hard, tears escaping as he did and he leaned in, kissing her.

They broke when a piece of the building falling down the street and he choked on the lump in his throat. No spell could create this. It couldn't create love, and that's what he felt for this woman. She was the only woman he'd truly loved.

"I don't know how real all this is," Willa murmured, leaning in so that her forehead was pressed against his and Grace between them, her little hand snagging hold of the front of his shirt, "but you told me once here that doing the right thing wasn't about what it got you, because you were never promised anything good. You did the right thing because it was right."

"What a load of bullshit."

"Maybe, but right now, as much as I want to hold onto you and never let you go, I have to do the right thing." Her gaze flickered past him. "Doc, get him out of here."

Bobo realized what was happening even as the words left her mouth and he felt Holliday take hold him from behind, pulling him towards the tear. "No! Willa! _Willa_! _Grace_! _**No**_!"

He fought but Doc had enough momentum to pull him backwards, and as they went tumbling through the rip, he saw his family disappear with the dream.

* * *

 

Notes: I've known how this chapter was going to end for some time now, but it was still so freakin' hard to write. This story may actually kill me.

Stay tuned, guys! The next chapter may be the last one for the story, but a lot will happen. It's not over until it's over ;)


	9. Part Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updated version. See end notes for details.

Blue eyes blinked sluggishly open and he felt like he was trying to wade through a thick fog, every thought taking a little longer than it should have to sort through. It took a moment for him to piece together that he wasn’t laid out on the main street that cut through the middle of Purgatory, but rather on what felt like a metal floor and was staring up at a ceiling rather than the sky above him. It was freezing, his breath showing as a groan escaped him as he shifted, every muscle in his body fighting the movement. He got turned enough that he could see what looked like the inside of a walk in freezer and the rest of Wynonna’s friends and family in various states of wakefulness. None of them looked too worse for wear, even if chilled same as he was. 

“Oh good, you’re awake.”

He turned, finding Wynonna herself standing over him with her arms crossed and the question died before it even made it to his lips. Willa. Grace. He’d lost them, or maybe hadn’t even had them at all. That family that he’d been so certain that he loved had been bait, dangled in front of him and he had jumped at a dream life that he wasn't sure he'd even known he could still want. He’d been played for a fool and when he got his hands on Clootie he was going to tear him to pieces.

“Yeah,” he bit out, forcing himself to his feet and he reached a hand out, half-frozen fingers outstretched and splayed in front of him, and the door began to rattle. He felt the metal react, the world around him tinging red with the effort and it gave.

The heavy door slammed forward and there was a yelp from the other side as it collided with a Revenant that had been left on guard duty, little good that he did. Bobo was first out and he growled lowly, catching sight of the second guard. He recognized him. Jim… No, Jon, he thought. It didn’t matter. He could feel the brand burning his back as he swung the door around and into Jonny boy, slamming him against the wall.

“Where’s my gun, asshole?” Wynonna demanded and the Revenant stared up at her with terror in his eyes even as the Heir took hold of the front of his shirt. 

“He won’t tell you,” Bobo grunted, looking around. They were in the back kitchen of a restaurant just down from the sheriff’s station. It looked like Clootie had had them dragged in there after putting them under the dream spell, and likely planned to let them freeze to death while they’d happily lived out their last breaths in the dream world, oblivious to the fact that they should have been fighting for their lives. It had kept them placated and given him time to… Bobo still wasn’t sure, but he really didn’t care. He’d stopped caring a great deal about the people caught of this town long ago and his goal, his one aim, was ripping Clootie to shreds now.

“Bobo, are you-”

“No,” he snapped, cutting Waverly’s soft question off. He didn’t have to hear it to know exactly what she was trying to ask. “No I’m not.” He blew past her, heading for the restaurant's exit to the main street. 

He didn’t quite make it, though. His hand touched the door as he felt the change in pressure, pure power throwing him back not unlike the Revenant that had been caught in his own escape just moments before. Bobo hit hard, snarling as he kicked the newly broken wood door off of him. Clootie stood in the opened entrance, much more whole than they’d last seen him, and a ring resting on his finger. So that had been it. This whole bag of chaos had been so that he could steal that damned ring back.

Bobo hauled himself to his feet, Wynonna close enough that he could speak lowly. “Get Peacemaker.”

“What about you?”

“We’ll see if there’s enough left for you when I’m through.” 

His blue eyes flickered to the entrance, catching Clootie’s golden gaze, and he could hear the screams from beyond the door. The demon’s smile was twisted. He always had enjoyed torturing the citzens of Purgatory.  “Have a nice nap, Robert?” A deep, rumbling growl escaped Bobo as he bent a little, ready to spring into action, but that only seemed to amuse Clootie more. “After everything, I would feel let down if you just stepped aside.”

“There’s only one way this ends.”

“That’s a severe lack of imagination.” Clootie chuckled, his boots sounding against the wooden floor of the restaurant. It was empty, just the two of them, and Bobo imagined he’d sent a collection of Revenants around back to head off any attempt at escape by the Earp clan. “That’s not something I would expect from you, especially after all the years and all you’ve seen. Tell me, how was Willa?”

Hatred boiled him over the tipping point and he leapt forward, a snarl on his lips as he had to cut sharply right to avoid a blow aimed at him. Clootie had barely twitched, but power that looked like a streak of blue cutting through the air left the floor where Bobo had just been smoldering and he couldn’t move fast enough to avoid the next one.

The hit took him off his feet, slamming him hard and he rolled to a stop, the pain on par with crossing the line. He lay there for a half a moment, coughing and sputtering against it, but a single image pushed through the blow, and he remembered Willa’s determined expression as she had held tight to Grace, letting him go to escape the destruction of a world that had been falling down around them. 

He grimaced, pulling himself up to his knees, and he held onto the memory like a lifeline. Slowly his gaze focused in on Clootie who had a twisted smile played out across his features now as he moved towards the struggling Revenant. He tilted his head just a little as he reached out, taking hold of the strip of hair and pulling back hard. “Stubborn, but you always did look better on your knees. Stay.”

“No,” Bobo snarled and the world went red as he pulled  _ hard  _ for anything metal that his powers could reach, and the restaurant was full of it. Tables and chairs, knives, and even a framed piece of art flew from the wall and while Clootie was able to deflect most of it, he couldn’t stop the angry Revenant that came at him, knocking him into the ground as hard as he was physically capable. 

There was a loud cracking sound as the demon that was responsible for the Earp Curse hit the unyielding floor beneath them and Bobo’s hands went around his throat, palms pressed hard enough against his windpipe that he choked against the pressure. 

“ _ You _ ,” Bobo snarled, and the pain unbearable. Every time he thought he’d hit his threshold, something pushed him past it and brought a new level of anguish into his life. It was the only constant in his life. Everything and everyone else left him, but the one thing that he would have happily let go of - the one thing that he’d tried so hard to let the numbness of time and everything he’d done to survive ebb away at - remained steady and growing. There was always pain, but this… this was too much. “You made me think-”

“Oh no, Robert,” Clootie choked out. “I didn’t make you think anything. That life, that was all you. And her, of course. She had some part in it dreaming up a world where she didn’t… suffer quite like she did.”

“That wasn’t Willa.”

“Was it not?” the demon asked, that terrifying smile back and Bobo wondered when he’d let his grip loosen enough for the other to speak. “Do you really think that a dream could create a person that you loved so clearly? No, she was real, Robert. Real as you are, and you left her there.”

“Willa  _ died _ .”

“So did you. Curses are funny things, aren’t they?”

The truth of what he was saying sunk in and Bobo felt a terror spread through him. His Willa. She’d been  _ his _ Willa. Of course she had, and he’d left her there. He’d…

“You never learn your lesson with those Earps, do you?” Clootie asked and Bobo didn’t have time to react.

Power slammed into him, picking him fully up and throwing him back hard enough that he went crashing through the front window of the restaurant and into the street. He laid there, sprawled out against the asphalt and staring up at the sky above him, the colours strangely beautiful. It hurt, he knew that on some level, but the physical pain was nothing compared to suckerpunch of knowing that all he’d had to do was drag her with him to save her. He’d failed her again. 

He could hear the sound of Clootie’s steps and the raspy chuckle. “I’ll give you this, Robert, you’ve always been determined. It’s impressive, really. I wondered that day what Wyatt would have seen in someone like you, but I do see it now. That’s why -” he lifted one boot and set it back down on Bobo’s chest, the pressure causing the Revenant to cough against it - “it’s good to see you like this. Broken. It had to happen sooner or later, wouldn’t you say? With everyone that’s left you, abandoned you…”

“Get outa my head,” Bobo managed, but the fight hadn’t quite made it back into him yet.

“They’re gone. The Heir? She’s not going to risk her life to make sure you stumble away from this. All you’ve done is sacrifice yourself to make sure another one gets away. Same story. Gets a bit dull, doesn’t it?”

A shot rang out and he watched Clootie’s eyes widen from above him, dark blood blossoming from the exit wound in his chest. It wasn’t a kill shot, but it was the first time since Wyatt that anyone had been able to get a bullet past the demon’s defences. 

The second shot wasn’t so lucky, but it did cause Bulshar to release the Revenant under his boot and Bobo turned on his side, wincing against the back-to-back blows he’d suffered and he saw Wynonna moving towards them, Peacemaker in her hand and the shots going off. Doc, Dolls, Waverly, and Nicole were behind her, even Junior with his plastic gun in determinedly steady hands. 

“Get the hell away from him,” Wynonna said, pulling the hammer back on Wyatt’s gun. 

Bobo managed to sit up to see Clootie slinking away, finally at a stalemate with the Heir. He was injured, and the moment that he dropped his defences to attack her she’d finish him off for good. It wasn’t a risk he’d be willing to take. 

Several long moments of silence followed Bulshar’s retreat and Bobo leaned against bent knees, feeling sick. He didn’t look up as tassled boots stepped into his line of sight. “We’ve gotta do some damage control,” Wynonna murmured awkwardly. “Are you….?”

“I’ll meet up later,” Bobo managed, still not bothering to look up.

“You want someone to stay with you?”

He snorted, finally letting his gaze travel up to the fifth Heir he’d known. “I’ll manage. Run along.”

Wynonna rolled her eyes a little at him and turned on her heel. He didn’t need her pity. He didn’t want it. No one could give him what he wanted. It didn’t exist anymore.

  
  


“You look like you could use a drink,” Wynonna said, trying for a smile and failing miserably as she leaned against the bar next to Doc. He was staring at a shot glass that he’d already finished off, but he didn’t seem inclined to move to refill it.

“More ‘n one,” he mumbled and she rounded the bar to grab another glass.

She could feel his eyes on her the whole way around, but she didn’t say anything as she grabbed for the whiskey bottle and filled both glasses neat. They drank, set the glasses down, and she filled them back up again.

Doc cleared his throat. “How’s, uh, everythin’ goin’ with the clean up?”

“Well, he trashed the place pretty good,” Wynonna grumbled, thinking back to the chaos that they’d found the BBD offices in. Bulshar had torn through it as he looked for his ring that Widow Mercedes had stolen from him and that they’d tried to keep from him. The fact that he found it was just another setback in a collection of them, but that would be a battle for another day. For now, they’d all gotten out alive and… mostly intact. She winced a little at the utterly destroyed look that seemed to be resting on Doc’s handsome features. “You okay?”

He shrugged and pulled in a deep breath. “It was nice,” he admitted softly. “You ‘n me ‘n Alice like that.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Wasn’t just my dream, Wynonna. Took both of us to make that.”

Her lips tugged down and she took another long drink from her glass. “I really don’t want to think about that right now, Doc.”

“You never do.”

“It’s hard. I miss her…. so much.” She couldn’t look at him as she spoke, her eyes focused on every marking in the old wood that made up the bar. She jumped just a little as his hand covered hers and squeezed.

“Me too, darlin’.”

She turned her hand over in his, feeling his fingers brush along the skin on the underside of her wrist and she tightened her hold, finally meeting his gaze. “We’re going to beat him, and when we do, she’s coming home.”

“Best do it soon or she ain’t gonna remember our faces.”

“Yeah.” The door to the bar opened and she looked over his shoulder to see Bobo Del Rey shuffling in. It had been hours and no one had had any idea where he’d gone to, but there he was, snow covered and the shock of white hair spiked up from the wind that had started howling outside. Wynonna sighed. “Time to handle that,” she grumbled.

“Hey,” Doc called, stopping her in her steps. “Go easy on him, huh?”

She snorted a short laugh. “Who are you and what have you done with Doc Holliday?”

He rolled his eyes and waved her off, reaching for the whiskey again as she turned. 

Bobo was knocking his boots off at the door as she rounded the bar and steeled herself for the mood that he was bound to be in. She couldn’t blame him, not really, but a part of her hoped that the outpouring of rage he’d given Bulshar had helped balance him out a little bit at least. As much as she hated to admit it, he was now an integral part of their team, and this was far from over. “Yo, dummy,” she greeted, immediately kicking herself for the teasing greeting that she’d used so often in the dream world. Damn. This was going to be harder than she thought.

He pushed a short breath out through his nose. “Wynonna,” he greeted back, those sharp blue eyes no longer hidden behind glasses as he looked over to her. “I take it you managed to get things back under control?”

“More or less. You know how Purgatory is. They prefer an answer that will let them ignore what’s really going on even if it’s crazy.”

Bobo gave a short shrug in response and started for the bar. He didn’t acknowledge Doc, but instead grabbed a bottle of liquor without bothering with a glass and found a table in the back corner to sit and sulk away from the others who had started to come in. Wynonna knew the intention had been to drink alone, but she’d never been good at doing nothing before, and right then drinking with Bobo and his problems seemed a lot easier than drinking with Doc and the one that they shared.

“What do ya want, Earp?” Bobo grumbled as she pulled a chair out.

“Oh, you know, to drink away that entire world, mostly,” she answered and snagged his bottle, taking a long swig from him. 

He grunted a response and took it back the moment she set it down. Wynonna watched him as he drank, set it down, and slid in his chair, slouched and angry looking. She chewed on the inside of her cheeks a little, searching for something, anything, that might help. She wasn’t very good at comforting, but she didn’t like seeing people she cared about in pain either. Well, that was interesting. She cared about Bobo Del Rey. As much as she’d like to blame the lingering memories from the dream spell for that, she knew it had come before that. “Listen,” she started, a few quick drinks back-to-back on an empty stomach leaving her a little more open than normal, “I know this… sucks.”

“The depth of your understanding never ceases to amaze, Wynonna girl,” Bobo sighed, massaging the bridge of his nose. “Could you let me drink in as close to peace as I can get?”

“No, because I get it.” She leaned forward and he leaned back. “That world… that life that we all lived, it felt hella real. Everything about it. I think we lived it in a way and we all…. Saw what our lives could have been.” She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and all she wanted in that moment was her daughter in her arms to tell her not to cry. “We all lost something.”

“Difference is you got a chance to get it back.”

Wynonna grimaced at the words and for just a moment she couldn’t help but think of him laid out in the snow, face half blown away by a grenade, and neither had believed the other truly loved Willa in the end. She knew now. She knew that he loved her, even if this life had been more complicated than the other. Wynonna swallowed hard and nodded. “Yeah, well, I just meant…. You’re not alone. Just because we’re back doesn’t make you any less family. She loved you there and here.”

He looked at her like she’d taken a shot at him, pain so deep that it actually hurt her and she didn’t want to imagine what it was doing to him. Bobo stood, grabbing the bottle, and she remained rooted in her seat as he muttered something about a cigarette as he walked past her. 

She heard Doc scoot his stool away from the bar after the front door closed and she finally turned. “I don’t think he’s in a talking mood,” she warned.

Doc offered a smile that didn’t reach his eyes as he followed the Revenant out into the snow.

  
  


The snow hadn’t let up in the five minutes that he’d been inside Shorty’s, not that he’d really expected it to. He had hoped that Wynonna and her little band could leave him alone long enough to actually get something of a buzz going from whatever Holliday had in stock under the bar. No such luck, though, so it looked like he got to freeze his ass off while he drank. They’d be less likely to follow him out into the building mess.

Bobo shoved a hand into his coat, looking for his cigarettes and coming back empty. He checked the other side and his jean pockets and loosed an angry snarl, eyes flashing in irritation. He couldn’t catch a break. 

The door opened behind him and he whirled, ready to let Wynonna have it if she’d been fool enough to follow him, but Doc Holliday held a pack of cigarettes out as a peace offering. Bobo sniffed, taking the pack and knocking one out, switching the pack for the lighter next and he felt the smoke travel down his throat with the first drag. He took a heavy seat on the curb of the sidewalk outside the bar and gave a lazy motion. “Figure if you share your smokes I’m expected to share my booze.”

Doc took a seat next to him. “I do believe you mean  _ my _ booze, as it came from  _ my _ bar.”

“Which I never saw a dime for.”

“Happens when someone kills ya.”

Bobo shook his head, a strained laugh escaping him despite everything. It was strange, he still hated Holliday in a way, but when he looked at him he could also see Hank and all those memories of a friendship closer than either of them had ever had even with Wyatt swirling around and fighting for space in his head. It made hating him a little harder. 

“It’s funny,” Doc chuckled, though there wasn’t a great deal of mirth in it. “I remember you bein’ there when my mother passed. Sittin’ out on her porch like we are here, drinkin’ and smokin’. Ain’t nothin’ to say to ease somethin’ like losin’ someone you love.”

“That didn’t happen,” Bobo huffed.

“Felt real enough to me. Like raisin’ Alice an’ watchin’ those two girls grow up together.” Doc sniffed hard, running the back of his hand along his nose. “Spell or not, it happened. Not gonna do any good to deny that.”

“‘Spose not.” Bobo took a long drag from the cigarette and let the smoke escape into the cold night air, a confession riding out on the breath. “I let them go.”

Doc didn’t answer right away, and that was much more the Hank he knew than the man that Robert had left down at the bottom of the well so many years before. Bobo closed his eyes and dug the heel of one hand into his eye, hoping to alleviate some of the building pressure behind it. “Willa was real. Clootie, he…. I knew it before he said it. Didn’t wanna admit it, but I knew it.”

“How’s that possible to bring her back like that?”

Bobo shrugged. “How’s any of this possible? Damn curse.”

“And Grace?” The question was half swallowed, like he regretted it before he finished asking.

The Revenant shook his head. She shouldn’t have been possible, not from what he knew. Revenants and humans couldn’t have children, but… He sighed, reaching for the liquor. “We loved her more ‘n anything. Can’t love a dream like that,” he managed, Willa’s words hurting more coming from his lips.

“I am sorry. For what it’s worth, we’re gonna need you in this fight.”

“And here I am. Ain’t never gonna catch a break for it, but here I am.” 

Doc made a small sound of acknowledgement and took hold of the bottle, lifting it before drinking. He handed it over and Bobo did the same. They sat in silence, smoking and drinking as the snow fell down around them. 

 

It was cold and dark and near silent save the constant and steady dripping of the water in the corner of the room. It was enough to drive a person mad if left long enough there long enough, and if the past hours were anything to go by, they might just leave her there to rot. 

The sound of footsteps beyond the locked door drew her attention and she looked up from her crouched position in the corner furthest from the leaking ceiling, her eyes sharp and wary as it opened. 

She didn't recognize the man that entered, though something about him sent a chill up her spine and she stood, unwilling to give him any advantage over her if at all possible. There was something distinctly out of place about him, but it was the condescending smirk that tilted his lips that caused her to square her shoulders. “And who are you supposed to be?”

He chuckled, tilting his head a little as he watched her, golden gaze not quite right. Not quite of this world. “Hello there.” His voice was strangely pleasant, familiar, but she bristled as he moved closer and reached out, his fingers touching her hair.  “This is an interesting turn of events.”

She jerked back and away from him. “You didn't answer my question.”

“I never expected you to be pulled through. To be pulled back, but of all the Heirs, you were always special, Willa.”

There it was, in the way he said her name. She knew that voice from the latest hours, alone in the treehouse. It had pulled and tugged and whispered to her. Promises in the dark. “Bulshar,” Willa Earp breathed the name that her mother had called the demon when she'd been young, and he smirked, taking her hand in his own.

“It's a pleasure to finally meet you face to face, Willa.”

Willa pulled her hand away, her gaze hardening. “I know exactly who you are. Bulshar. Clootie. The one who started  _ all _ of this.”

“You always were the cleverest of your sisters, weren't you? Robert never did see that.”

“And what? You expect me to turn on him for you because of it?” 

“You're assuming there's anyone left to turn on, Ms Earp. The dream world might have swept everything you did away for a while, but this is the reality in which you betrayed not only your sisters, but your lover too. Not such a happy home there.”

He was in her face now, and all she wanted to do was reach out and hit him as hard as she could manage. “Things have changed.”

“Have they?”

A thin smile stretched her lips and she did her best to keep her voice steady. “What you tried backfired. We may not be in that world anymore, but we lived it. It’s just as much a part of them as it is me now. We’ll figure it out.”  

“Do you believe that? Enough to risk everything on it?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He slipped around and when she had moved away from the wall enough for him to get in behind her, long fingers landing against her shoulders, she wasn’t sure, but she could feel his breath on her ear as he spoke. “I’ve got something you want.”

Willa snorted. “Yeah, and what’s that?”

“A way to get your daughter back.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This may be the first time that I've ever edited a posted chapter to this degree, and I think it's because I got a bit ahead of myself. Somehow I got it stuck in my head that this was going to be 10 or fewer chapters, and as I got closer to that mark I decided I was going to handle some of the aftermath in one-shots. I still plan to do some one-shots, but when someone weighed in and mentioned that the ending felt a bit rushed, I had to agree. There's really no reason to shuffle everything off to one shots just to stay under 10 chapters.  
> So yeah. Took some brainstorming time to figure out how I wanted to work the questions I still want answered into the larger story and allow the ending to come about a bit more organically. No clue how long this will be at this point, so I guess we'll see :D
> 
> ~~And this is the moment where everyone sees what TYPICALLY goes on behind the scenes before I post a story, but got a bit ahead of myself this time... sorry, but more Wynonna Earp?~~


	10. Part Ten

 

The trailer park had become something of a ghost town in the days following Clootie's resurrection. The Call had been strong, pulling most of the Revenants that had survived Wynonna's tenure as Heir to his side, willing to bow down and serve the master that had a chokehold on their very souls. Bobo could still feel that pull every now and again, threads of the curse wrapped around him, tugging and coercing him into his natural state that he was fighting so hard against. And demondom was, and had been for some time now, his natural state, no matter how human the dream world had made him feel again. It was back to reality.

There were a small handful of Revenants that had defected with Bobo when he'd broken from Clootie - they remembered the last time he'd proven that he was more powerful than any Revenant in the Triangle and had had no interest in being the one that he used if he chose to prove that again - and they were his eyes and ears, just as it had been for nearly a century that they'd shared this prison together. One or two scurried around the park, even at this late hour, and the others were either out or sleeping.

Bobo bent behind an empty trailer to shield his lighter from the wind and he lit the cigarette between his lips, pulling in the smoke and letting the nicotine do what it could to ease his tattered nerves. It had been just at a week since the spell had been broken and he'd barely slept. Every time he had tried to close his eyes he had seen them: his Willa and his Grace. His little girl had reached for him and the world had broken apart around them, leaving him to wake screaming their names in a panic that just wouldn't do in a place of tentative power over the remaining Revenants loyal to him.

So he just hadn't slept.

It wasn't a permanent solution, but so far it was working for the most part. He wasn't sure just how long he could manage that - even Revenants had limits, he'd found - but with the way things were escalating he didn't think he would have to hold out too much longer until they came back around to violent blows with Clootie.

"Boss?"

It was everything he could do to keep from jumping at the sound of the voice behind him, and he covered the flinch with another drag of his cigarette, pulling himself together and shoving down the exhaustion as he turned. One of the Revenants that had always been so eager to please stood swaying back and forth from side to side, waiting anxiously. It made Bobo wonder what sort of bad news he was there to deliver. Freddy looked like he was afraid he was about to take a pounding for it. "What?" he growled out, not missing the way that the other's eyes darted for the nearest escape.

"I, uh… you had me down by the lake outside of town for anythin' that stood out," he stuttered, stumbling over every few words and Bobo briefly considered if popping him on the back of the head might help encourage the words out a little faster. He knew he'd sent him out of Purgatory to scout out some of the land still within the Triangle that rested between the town and the Big City. Clootie wouldn't dare hide within Purgatory. Not with everything riding on him building enough power to take them all out.

Freddy continued to sputter and Bobo adjusted his footing, leaning closer to the shaking Revenant. He'd been a petty thief, if memory served. Never violent, even after his first trip to hell, but he wasn't overly useful most of the time either. "And?" he prompted roughly.

"Right. There's this, uh, cabin down close to the line. Been abandoned for years. Ain't been no one there for…. Right." He seemed to realize that he was repeating himself and grimaced, resetting. "There were lights. Got in close and saw ol' Texas Bill 'n Skinny Pete down by it. Got pictures too." He pulled out his cell phone and Bobo took it, fumbling with the zoom on it to show faces only partially illuminated by the lights shining on the cabin. "They went down some cellar. Didn't come out as long as I sat there."

Bobo pushed a long breath out through his nose. He never would have bet money on it, but Freddy had found something. He wasn't sure what yet, but they'd found something. He huffed something of an acknowledgement and shoved the phone in his coat pocket, taking another long drag from his cigarette as he moved towards the motorcycle he'd parked earlier.

"Uh, boss? Am I gonna get my phone back?" came the almost squeaky question.

"When I'm done with it," Bobo answered gruffly, straddling the bike and kicking the stand up. He didn't give Freddy the chance to argue again as it roared to life and sped towards the gate.

* * *

It was late. Later than anyone else bothered to stay. There was a cop on duty out front in case there was an emergency, but all in all the sheriff's station was almost empty. If he were honest, Jeremy liked it that way. It let him think without too many distractions, and lately there had been plenty. He was needed for a hundred different things and all he wanted to do was exactly what he felt like he'd been doing for the last five years: creating. The theories he'd worked with in the dream world translated well enough into this one and in the late hours of the night, while all the other members of the team were sleeping, he was able to tinker.

There was a crashing sound from out front, like someone shoving the doors open with a bit more forceful than they needed to be opened, followed by a startled sound and haphazard protest from the police officer up front. Jeremy was halfway to the door leading out of the BBD offices when he spotted Bobo Del Rey stalking irritably down the hallway. Not that he walked any other way these days.

The Revenant stopped mid-step, almost as if he were having trouble adjusting his focus, but that couldn't be right. From what Jeremy knew Revenants had heightened senses, including vision. While Robert Svane had needed glasses, Bobo certainly didn't, so what had startled him into stoping like he had was beyond him.

"Junior."

The greeting jerked him out of his thoughts and Jeremy blinked rapidly. "Hey. Yo. What are you doing here… so, so late? Wow. Is it really nearly two am? I mean, where does time go, am I right?" He gave a nervous chuckle and Bobo waved one hand in the air dismissively before digging in his coat pocket to pull out a cell phone.

He handed it over. "Do you know how to make this clearer?" he asked, pulling up a picture.

Jeremy had crossed the space between them and peered at the offered image. It was dark, two men whose faces were mostly visible, just cut by shadows, moving to a location that he didn't know. "Sure. Shouldn't take too long. Where'd you get it?"

"One of the boys I had keepin' an eye out. Two Revenants that we know are working close with Clootie disappeared into this cellar."

"Oh," Jeremy all but hummed and took the phone from him, turning back to his lab and going straight to the computers to start the process of clearing up the image so they could actually do something with it. Once he had the program running he turned, finding Bobo lingering at the door like he didn't quite know if he wanted to come in or not.

The lights in the hallway had been dimmed to conserve electricity, but here in the lab Jeremy could see the bags forming under Bobo's pale eyes, the lines in his face appearing just a little deeper than usual and he could almost feel the change in him. He was always gruff, always a little irritable and he'd been more distant than usual lately, but everyone had been adjusting. They had two lives to deal with in their heads now and trying to sort through that, trying to come to terms with it, had been difficult. They'd helped each other where they could, supporting each other and even going as far as to push those that didn't want to work through it. Nicole had Waverly, Waverly had Wynonna, Wynonna had Dolls, and Dolls and Jeremy both had pushed Doc where he needed it, but no one had pushed Bobo. He hadn't realized that until now. The man that had lost so much with the collapse of that spell, but after that first night of mourning it had just been… dropped. It wasn't right.

"How long's that gonna take?"

"Oh, a few minutes. We've got a few." Bobo nodded, turning like he was thinking about leaving. "But, uh, I mean, you'll want to be here when I get it cleared right? It won't take _that_ long. Why don't you sit down? We can -" he looked around, searching wildly for anything he could use when he spotted the desk that Wynonna kept a scant few possessions in the office- "oh!" He rushed over to the desk and dug through the mostly empty drawers before finding a bottle of whiskey. "This is what you guys do, right?"

Bobo stared at him like he'd gone completely crazy and then finally shook his head. "Sure. Why the hell not? Not like I've got anywhere to be."

It took Jeremy a beat longer than it probably should have to decide if the Revenant was being sarcastic or not, but when he decided that he'd actually accepted the offer he went for a couple of coffee mugs they had stored away and poured whiskey into each mug. Bobo motioned and he poured bit more until he finally waved at him to stop at considerably more than Jeremy had in his own mug. That was fine. He needed to relax a little.

He watched Bobo take the mug and lean against the desk opposite, never quite sitting, and it became quickly evident that Jeremy was going to have to start the conversation. He took a swig from his mug, nearly choking as it burned all the way down his throat, and coughed hard as his eyes watered. "So," he managed, "how've you been holding up?"

Bobo stared at him. "I've kept busy."

"Yeah, but that's not really what I meant." The scientist looked down at his shoes, trying to figure out exactly how he needed to phrase this so that Bobo couldn't squirm out of answering. No one should have to face what any of them had gone through alone, and certainly not losing everyone. He hadn't just lost his wife and kids, but a connection to the group that had tied him even tighter to it. It had to be hard. Being a Revenant, being Bobo Del Rey didn't change that. It couldn't. He just needed to find a way to get him to open up. He took another drink and choked again.

"Go easy on that, Junior. Ain't a race."

"I know it's not, but I…" He blinked hard, finding those icy blue eyes focused in on him. "You're teasing me?"

"Little."

"Oh." He cracked a smile. "Right. Yeah, I don't typically drink whisky straight."

"Coulda fooled me."

The smile grew a little and Jeremy took an intentionally smaller sip and it went down much more smoothly than before. It was warm and soothing, and he leaned back against the desk and glanced over to the computer to see that they had time. "I just meant with everything that happened. With Willa and Gracie and..." He saw the way that Bobo cringed at that and he stopped. No, this was wrong. He wasn't going to just tell him everything, Jeremy knew that. Of course he knew that. Bobo was a private man to begin with, and then add onto that the deeply personal nature of everything that happened, then why on earth would he tell Jeremy everything just because he asked? That was stupid.

Jeremy cleared his throat and moved to take a seat in the chair next to the desk, taking another sip from his mug as he did and feeling a strange sort of warmth working its way through him. "My mom was alive in that world," he blurted without warning.

"Say what?"

"My mom. I mean, she died… here. In this reality. I lost her… years ago." Jeremy winced at the twinge of pain and the next drink he took was a bit longer and the burning felt a bit better this time. "I miss her like crazy, but she was alive in that world and she was…. So proud of me. It was crazy. Perfect." He could feel the smile spreading even as his vision blurred from the tears that were gathering at the thought. "I didn't take the time to see her that I should have. If I'd known where we were, nothing else would have mattered. I would have spent as much time with her as I could have." He glanced over to see the other man leaned against the desk, drinking from his own mug and he found himself wondering if it burned him any less. "We had all these plans that I remember making with her. I mean, I don't even know if I actually saw her or if she was really there, but I remember making the plans. I was going to take her to Europe. She wanted to go to Scotland and see the cows. They've got these cows there that are super shaggy and really cute and she…. She wanted to see the cows. I promised her I'd take her. I never did."

Bobo's eyes were focused on nothing in particular, dark brows drawn together and he reached up and ran a hand along the strip of mostly platinum blond hair along the top of his head, his lips twitching downward before taking a long swallow of his own whiskey. "Grace was writing a play."

"She was?" Jeremy managed and he saw the tiniest of smiles tilt Bobo's thin lips.

"Yeah. 'Bout a princess that became a knight. She asked me to play the monster that the princess-knight rescued. She was gonna put it on for everybody when she worked the kinks out of it. She'd tell me a new scene to write down every afternoon after I got home from work and then have me read it back so she could change what she wanted to change."

"Sounds like her."

"Yeah."

Jeremy chewed on his lip a little, desperately searching for the right words, but there weren't any. There were no right words to mourn the kind of losses that they'd suffered.

The computer sounded off an alert that the rendering was completed and both men looked over. Bobo cleared his throat and stood. "Can't bring 'em back now," he huffed, "but we can find Clootie an' make 'im suffer."

"Will it help?" Jeremy asked, hating how small his voice sounded for a question that felt so big.

Bobo paused, blue eyes squeezing shut. "For a moment, yeah," he said and he knocked back what was left of his mug. "That somethin' we can use?"

Jeremy leaned in to look at the photo, the image clear and sharp now. "Yeah, I think so. Wyonna's gonna be pissed at how early it is."

"Not if you tell her we might get Clootie 'cause of it."

"True," Jeremy managed and reached for his cell phone. He was glad he'd stayed late at the lab.

* * *

Bulshar had left her to think on his proposition. She wasn't alone, not all the time. There were Revenants that came in and out, threatening but never quite touching her. The threat _was_ there though, the understanding that the moment that Willa turned the demon down that she would relive one of the most traumatic experiences of her childhood. This time Bobo wouldn't be there to stop the other Revenants from acting on every twisted desire that passed through their heads.

A shiver ran through her as the memories bubbled to the surface. She had been in a room not unlike this one, her father's lifeless body her only company between Revenant visits. They hadn't even bothered to close his eyes. She could still remember curling herself into a far corner, terrified and alone, and she knew just enough to know that it could be _much_ worse. She remembered hearing the angry snarls outside of her cage and the door flying open, a Revenant even more terrifying than the others hauling her up and telling the Seven that he would _handle_ her. He had hauled her over his shoulder to carry her out, kicking and screaming and swearing. She had threatened him, even if they had both known she couldn't make good in it, and he had finally dropped her so that he could look her in the eye, the first words he had spoken directly to her a demand to know if she'd prefer that he left her with the Seven and what they had planned. Willa had gone immediately silent at that and he had taken her away. She had had no way to know that the Revenant leader was staging a rescue, not a murder. It had taken even longer for her to truly believe it and come to know Robert rather than just Bobo Del Rey.

Robert didn't even know she was alive, though. He wasn't coming for her. She was on her own and if she wanted even a chance to get back to the family that she'd loved so dearly in that dream world, she was going to have to find her own way.

Willa heard the sound of footsteps before the door opened and she stood. The Revenants that accompanied Clootie leered at her, but his smile was more charming than it had right to be. It was no wonder that he had gained so much power in Purgatory years before. He was a snake in the grass. He was also her captor with the power to make her wish for death. She had to be careful how she proceeded. He wasn't Wynonna, ready and willing to trust her. He was her enemy that she had to somehow convince that she was on his side.

"Good evening, Ms Earp. I hope you've considered my proposal."

"There wasn't much to it," she pointed out. "Exactly what do you want from me?"

Those strange gold gaze traveled up and down, taking in every inch of her and she felt violated already. She kept her shoulders squared and her chin tilted up, the boredest look she could manage on her face as she mentally ran through all the stories that Robert had told her over the years about how he'd convinced a band of outlaws that he was not only one of them, but their best option to survive. She might not be able to physically put any of these assholes down, but if she knew exactly what Clootie wanted she could outthink any of them. She had been trained as the Heir. She had this.

"You're a very special case, Willa," Bulshar said as he reached forward, his hand cold against her cheek but she didn't dare flinch. "An Heir that betrayed her family. That opened the Gates. You are-" he leaned in, breathing in deeply- "quite a find for me."

"You've said that much," Willa all but growled and then she did pull away. "And that if I help you that I can get my daughter back."

He hummed, but he didn't confirm the bit about Grace. Instead he let his hand drop to her shoulder and then down her arm, his touch light and it made her sick. "Curses are funny things. Magic is, really. Constance was good at managing it, but would you imagine that when she betrayed me, she didn't leave me with all of those details."

She did her best not to move as his fingers played with the hem of her shirt at her hip. "I would have thought dark magic would be right up a demon's alley."

"There's power there, but the magic is what hones it in. As the curse's castor there are certain… limitations put on me."

"And that's what you want me to help with?"

"As a Fallen Heir you open up countless roads that would have been closed before. One, in particular, that we can both benefit from."

Willa snapped, grabbing his wrist as his hand started to wander a bit more and she bent it around, hearing the Revenants around them jump as she slammed their master against the wall hard, his arm bent at an awkward and painful angle. "Spit it out or shut up."

A deep, rough chuckle left him and saw white teeth flash. "There she is, the girl locked away in a tower that would do anything to get what she wanted. I knew she was in there somewhere. Just because your goal has changed doesn't mean that you have. How far are you willing to go?"

She released her hold on him, but never broke eye contact. "I would do anything to make sure my child was safe."

"Good, then you'll have no problem killing the Heirs."

* * *

They'd been back to their own reality for a week now and Doc still wasn't sure that he had quite wrapped his mind around how there could be two realities that felt equally real to him bouncing around inside of his skull. On one hand there was this life, in which he'd lived for over a century, earned the name the fastest draw in the West, and fought along side Wyatt Earp. He'd made a deal for longevity and had been thrown down a well for his efforts, left to rot there not just by the witch that had tossed him but by a jealous mouse of a man that had had the audacity to blame him for… something. To be honest, he still wasn't sure what Bobo Del Rey blamed him for, but the two had a very tentative truce in this reality. Nothing like the close friendship that Doc had shared with the soft spoken and clever Robert Svane that he'd known in the dream world. They'd still been so very different, but that had brought them together there, and had left them with a deep respect and trust in one another.

Strangely enough, he had missed that this past week. Between losing his wife, his daughter, and his best friend, he felt very alone in this reality that was supposed to be his own, no matter how Jeremy and even Dolls had tried to let him know that they were there if he needed someone.

His and Wynonna's on again off again romance had come to a screeching halt when they'd returned, Wynonna shutting him out as she did and folding in on herself, focused entirely on trying to end Bulshar. It was a fine goal, he had no argument there, but he didn't questioned that she was avoiding the fact that they had been married. They had been a family. She seemed to think if she ignored that long enough that it would just go away.

Doc took a deep drag off his cigarette, tilting his head back to look up from where he stood outside of the Earp Homestead, squinting up at the stars sprawled out above. He loosed the smoke out through his nose, watching it curl in the chilly night air, and he thought about a little girl with big blue eyes, bouncy brown hair, and mischief for miles. She wasn't five-years-old yet, and that was fine by him. He'd be happy to relive it all over again if he could just watch her grow. It was the distance that killed him.

"Hey."

He turned, startled by the voice, and found Wynonna standing on the porch. "Hello."

"You know, when you said you were going to sleep here tonight, I thought you might mean sleep."

The sharpshooter smirked a little, turning back to his stargazing. She hadn't sought him out in a week, but in the dead of night maybe he was all she had. "Couldn't sleep?"

"Me or you?"

"Well, I know I couldn't."

She quirked an eyebrow and moved to stand next to him. He saw her tilt her head up to follow his line of sight and a soft sigh escape her as she reached out and snagged his cigarette from his lips, taking a long drag before handing it back. "It's tough."

"That's all you got to say?"

"What do you want me to say, Doc?"

"The truth's a start."

Wynonna huffed, her entire stance moving to defensive. "There's nothing to talk about. It was a dream. It wasn't real."

"You and I both know that ain't the whole of it."

"For you it isn't," she bit out and he flinched back a little at her tone.

He took a moment, trying to gather himself, and finally he cleared his throat. "I remember things like they happened. Like goin' out to that ol' drive in movie theater an' settin' up a picnic in the back of my truck. I remember seein' you for the first time in that world and thinkin' you were the girl I was gonna marry. I remember you turnin' me down the first time I proposed."

"You were drunk," Wynonna grumbled automatically.

"So were you."

That pulled a smile from her, and he was sure that it wasn't the first one he'd gotten since they'd gotten back. He offered the last drag off his cigarette and she turned her nose up and shook her head. She sighed, leaning into him so that her shoulder was pressed against his arm, her head tilted onto his shoulder.

"Were you happy?" Doc asked after a long moment, his whisper sounding so loud in the quiet night.

"Yeah," she answered and he found her looking up at him. "It's not you. It's this. I can't…. She's all I can think about. We have to get her back, Doc, and she has to be safe. Then…. Then maybe we can think about… all of that."

"Family?"

"We're already family."

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah," she huffed and turned to kiss his shoulder.

He leaned down to return the kiss to the top of her head. "I love you, Wynonna. No strings attached, but I do love you."

"I know. One thing at a time."

"One thing at a time," he agreed softly.

There was a moment of silence before he heard Wynonna's cell phone buzzing. She squirmed to reach into her heavy jacket for it and pulled it out. "Yeah?" There was a long pause and what sounded like Jeremy rattling on the other end of the line. "You sure? Okay. I'll get everyone up and we'll get down there. Waking him up is totally on you."

She hung up and turned to look at Doc. "They got a lead."

"They?"

"Jeremy and Bobo."

Doc raised a questioning eyebrow and she smirked at him, tipping up to press a kiss to his lips. He nearly sank into it, but she pulled back, motioning for the house. They had a job to do.


	11. Part Eleven

When the call had come through she hadn't expected to find herself trudging through half-melted snow outside of town, in the middle of the night, looking for an old cabin in the middle of nowhere. One of Bobo's minions had turned up with a few photos and not much else. They knew Clootie had a few Revenants guarding the place, but what they were guarding was the standing mystery.

They had driven out as far as they dared without risking the noise drawing unwanted attention. Three vehicles - including Bobo's motorcycle - had been parked as inconspicuously as the foliage allowed for, and they'd split off into two groups to circle around for a better look.

"I still can't believe the asshole drank all my whiskey," Wynonna grumbled as they walked through the slushy snow.

"Were you saving it for tonight?" Waverly asked, her tone only part teasing and Wynonna knew the look her sister was giving her without looking.

"Maybe," she grumbled. It's not like he didn't know that she wasn't.

"He had help."

Wynonna glanced over to where Dolls was knelt down behind a fallen tree, binoculars against his face, and watching the cabin down below their ridge that they were hidden on for the time being. "Yeah? You help him? Should I add you to my shitlist too?"

She was pretty sure he rolled his eyes, but in the deep darkness and with half his face hidden behind the binoculars it was hard to tell for sure.

"Didn't you listen to anything Jeremy said earlier?" Waverly asked pointedly and when Wynonna shrugged there was no doubt that Waves rolled her eyes. "Not everyone is handling this as 'well' as you are," she said, making a show of the air quotes.

"It's not like we didn't all lose something. Even someone."

"Yeah, but let's face it, he doesn't have the option of getting the most important part of his life that he had there back again"

"I mean, it's not like you can either," Wynonna grumbled.

"Being the Heir was amazing, but it wasn't the most important part. Everyone I love being safe and happy was, and we can have that again. We can make it happen, but Bobo… He really did love Willa, and as crazy as she turned out to be…." Waverly ducked her head a little. "He got a chance with her. A normal chance without the curse blowing everything to hell. He lost the woman he loved _and_ he lost his kids. He's never going to be able to get Grace back. Or even little Wyatt for that matter."

Wynonna pulled in a cold lungful of air and her lips stretched in a grimace. "Yeah."

"Yeah," Waverly answered, nudging her a little. "So if Jeremy needed to use a little liquid courage to get him to talk like the rest of us - well, most of us - have been trying to get each other to do, then I think you can go without your desk whiskey."

Wynonna pushed a long breath out through her nose and focused down on the cabin below, everything still and quiet as far as she could see. The others - some more willing than others - had tried to keep each other in check. They were focused on how real everything had been, how deeply they had felt everything, but Wynonna had just felt violated. She'd been ripped from her reality, kept from her child, and forced into…. Well, she had been forced, hadn't she? The happy home she'd lived in with Doc and Alice had been false. Fake. It wasn't something she would have dreamt of for herself, was it? She was a fighter, a drifter. She'd never thought long and hard and certainly not seriously of settling down, and even now the idea made her want to run for the hills. But, if she were honest - and Doc had wanted her to be honest - she wasn't unhappy in that world. Domesticity had always conjured up images of the stay-at-home wife kissing her husband goodbye as he went off to work while she cleaned and cooked and did… well, whatever domestic housewives did.

But her marriage to Doc in the dream world hadn't been that. Sure, there had been some routine. Alice had to be in bed by eight and one of them had to make sure the kid was fed, but she had still worked with Dolls for the BBD, even though she wasn't the Heir. She had still kicked butt and taken names. And they had been _fun_. The ring and the labels didn't change that. They tossed around in the sheets and they teased and they challenged. She'd missed his touch in the last week, missed the support that had come so unquestioningly. There hadn't been a night that she hadn't woken to a surprisingly empty bed in a house that was familiar yet different only to reach for him. It didn't matter how much she fought the idea, it had been her dream, if she had admitted it to herself or not. If it was meant to be or not. It had been something that she could see herself in someday, if they ever made it that far, and that terrified her more than a demon snarling in her face with Peacemaker a million miles away.

"There they are."

Wynonna jerked around to look at Dolls who was still crouched down. He offered the binoculars to Waverly and she peered through. "That's a lot of guards."

"He's definitely hiding something there. The question is what."

"Only one way to find out," Wynonna said as she pulled Peacemaker from its holster. "Call Nicole. We're going in."

* * *

There was no trust, only demands, and the demands were horrible. Willa had assumed that when Clootie had told her that he wanted her to kill the _Heirs_ , he'd meant Wynonna and Waverly. That had made sense, but he'd chuckled at her, like there was some sort of joke that she wasn't privy to, and had assured her that he meant Wynonna and _Alice_. He wanted her to kill her niece. Willa knew that she had a twisted sense of acceptable limits, but this made her sick.

She did what she could to curb that, though, tilting her head high and holding his gaze. It was strange. There was a time that she would have thought that putting Wynonna down, maybe even putting Alice down, was a blessing. It had been Bulshar that had whispered those thoughts to her night after night as she laid alone, Robert away and handling various pieces of business with the Revenants, and she'd been fool enough to listen.

Robert had never told her a great deal about Clootie. She'd asked. Again and again she'd asked, but ever y time he'd buckled down and refused to give her the detailed answer. He hated him. Possibly more than he hated Wyatt on any given day, and even that Willa had questioned over the years. Clootie, she never did. He was the one that had started it all. The one that loomed as a darkened presence over Robert's life and had dragged him into that darkness. She hadn't known the good man before, but through the dream spell she had had a chance to meet him. He was kind where the man she knew here had long since had the kindness driven from him. Soft-spoken, gentle but firm, and with faith to spare. So much had been taken by Clootie, and with the comparison she had now, the reality of it hurt.

She wondered what that man would think of her now as she stood in her cage of a room, the agreement between she and the demon that had done this to him. Bulshar wanted her to end the Heirs. She was no longer a threat there, and the fact that she had crossed the line with hate in her heart had, after all, set her up to end the curse, just not in the way that she'd originally thought. There was no freeing her and Robert from it simply by crossing the line and leaving everything else to burn. No, Clootie wanted her to kill the two remaining Heirs and set him up to rule, the limitations that the curse had put on him removed and his power only set to grow. He'd begun the process when Wyatt Earp had ridden into Purgatory a hundred and thirty-some-odd years earlier and Willa's great-great granddaddy had thwarted him. Clootie wasn't going to let Wynonna or Alice do the same, and a Fallen Heir doing the deed for him would, as he'd explained, would break the barrier. If she did this, he swore to her that she could walk free with Robert if he chose to leave with her, which he would. Robert would be free of the curse and they could take their life back. That was the payment offered.

There was a day when she wouldn't have blinked twice at paying the price to get what she wanted, but in those quiet moments she could almost hear that much softer voice that he spoke with in the dream world, reminding her that it was their daughter's soul she was bargaining with. Willa loved Gracie too much to damn her in the way Robert had been damned, the way that perhaps even she was after everything that had happened. Grace - and little Wyatt too, even if he hadn't been born yet when that world had fallen apart - deserved a better chance that either of their parents had had in this world, but that couldn't happen while Clootie walked free. Bit by bit she found herself changing gears. She was still trying to earn his trust, make it seem like she was on his side, but running at the first chance wasn't nearly as important as getting close enough to find a way to finish what Wyatt and Robert had started.

The locks came undone on her door suddenly and Willa looked over, startled by it. Clootie was still looking for Alice. Once he found her he had plans to make use of his newest weapon, but until then she was locked away like a well-kept secret away from the world. There was no way to get out without being seen. No way to get word to Robert or Wynonna what she was planning. Her family didn't even know that she was alive.

Two Revenants entered, but she didn't see any sign of Clootie with them. They growled and cursed, moving towards her and taking hold of her wrists. Willa pulled back immediately, slamming an elbow hard into one when he wouldn't let go. "You don't get to touch me," she snapped, and he actually took a step back at the look she gave him.

"Boss' orders."

"And what are those?"

"To move ya."

"Where?"

"Away."

He reached for her again and Willa dodged. "I can walk without a handsy escort, thanks. Only reason you should touch me again is if you just want a broken wrist."

The Revenant blinked owlishly at her, but didn't take hold again. Instead he motioned to the door and she moved, squaring her shoulders as she did. One of the Revenants circled around in front of her, the other remaining behind her, and she followed through a short tunnel that led to a set of stairs. Well, if nothing else, at least she might get a better idea about where they were keeping her. The room had been dank and dark, no windows to speak of, and as she climbed behind the lead Revenant she saw why. She'd been in a cellar, deep enough underground to hide her away from potentially prying eyes.

"Where's Clootie?" she demanded as they broke the surface and saw a few others scurrying around.

"None of your business," one of them huffed. "Move."

She slammed to a stop, the Revenant behind her barreling into her back and the one in front whirling on her and his eyes flashed red. "Listen here, you little bitch-"

"No, _you_ listen here," she growled. "Clootie wants my help, fine, but I'm not some hostage to be toted around. I'm Willa Earp, and I'm the best damn chance he has at winning this fight and he's the best damn chance I have of getting my children back. Our interests are aligned, so get over your paranoia and tell me what the hell is happening right now?"

She watched them exchanged glances, the struggle to decide if they were more afraid of Clootie or her. Finally the one in front of her heaved a heavy breath and grit his teeth. "Place got found out before Boss was ready. He wanted you moved. Truck's that way. You gonna move on your own or-"

"I've got two legs," she assured him and strode past him, barely able to contain her smile until she got past him. Clootie had been found out before he was ready. Well, that was the first bit of good news she'd heard in some time. He was struggling, and if he was struggling, that meant he was vulnerable. If he was vulnerable, that meant he could be beaten. If she could find the vulnerability she could end this curse once and for all.

* * *

The cold bit through his coat, the wind having picked up as they trekked across the land towards the cabin. They were closing in around the back, Wynonna, Waverly, and Dolls around the other side. Bobo had been shuffled off with Nicole and Holliday, the latter side-eyeing him the whole way. Bobo knew why. He wasn't a fool, but he also wasn't ready to broach the situation either. He had the same life battering around his head as Doc did, but both men also remembered the pain and the hurt that had been dealt between them. It was conflicting at best and a distraction that neither of them needed at worst. They didn't have time for either.

"There were stories 'bout Clootie by the time Wyatt was asked to intervene," Doc muttered from where he was crouched.

"Yeah? Did they mention he was a literal demon?" Nicole asked from her place.

"A few." It had been Bobo that had answered that time. He still remembered speaking to Juan Carlos after he and Wyatt had first arrived in Purgatory, a conversation about angels and demons that Wyatt Earp had scoffed at. Robert had been open to it. If there were angels, he had had no doubt about the other side of things. He just hadn't realized that he would become one.

"I don't like going into this as blind as we are," Nicole murmured. "How much do you trust this Freddy guy?"

"Enough to know he's more terrified of what I'll do to 'im than what Clootie will," Bobo answered. "They know what happens if they turn on me."

Nicole grimaced a little at the thought, but didn't weigh in. Her phone buzzed in her pocket and she took a second to look at it. "That's the signal. We circle around from the back."

A huffed growl left the Revenant as he stalked forward, his boots crushing the soft snow beneath his feet. Both Doc and Nicole drew their weapons and he hunched down a little, closing his eyes and reaching out. Over the years he'd found a few little tricks that made his Revenant powers very useful. One of those was the ability to sense metal. He could pinpoint nearly every gun in a room by the time he entered. He wasn't surprised to find this lot heavily armed, moving and scurrying about and…. Blue eyes, still tinged red, popped open and his gaze swept over to the side where he could see the tail end of one of the vehicles half hidden by the cabin. "They know we're here."

Nicole spun to look at him. "What gives you that impression?"

"Perhaps the half a dozen Revenants packin' the vehicles up?" Holliday offered up. "Let the others know. We'll go down and take a closer look."

The redheaded deputy didn't look sold at first, but Bobo didn't wait for her to argue as he started past Doc to wind down to get a better look. The newly-mortal man had to jog to catch back up with him and Bobo could almost feel the questioning hanging in the air before he sucked in a lungful of cold air to ask it. "Listen, I -"

"Just stop. Whatever you're gonna ask, whatever you're gonna jump on, just don't," the Revenant snapped irritably.

He saw a flash of hurt at his tone that never would have been there before their run through the dream world. It took half a beat for Doc to set his jaw and clear his throat. "You an' me better come to some terms at some point. 'Less you wanna tell me that you're the only one the memories are fadin' for."There was a pause, almost like he was waiting for something, and his mustache twitched a little, assumably from the frown beneath it. "And if you do, I'll call ya a damn liar."

Bobo bristled just a little, squeezing his eyes closed for just a moment. They had too much riding on this. Too much to focus on. They worked just fine a truce rather than a friendship. There was no need to-

He almost missed it, and no matter how fast of a draw Doc Holliday was, he wasn't faster than a bullet already fired. Bobo could feel it tearing through the air and the world flashed red as he reached out, altering the trajectory as much as he could in the split second that he had available to him.

Doc let out a sharp cry, but it didn't stop him from raising his own gun and popping off two shots at the lone Revenant that had tried to kill him. The demon fell in the snow, dead at least for a little while, and the gunslinger let his arm drop to his side, a pained expression causing the lines around his eyes to deepen.

"Hank." The name that he hadn't used for the man since they'd come back tumbled off Bobo's lips as he reached out, finding a rip in his jacket and less blood than he'd feared.

"I'm fine. Just grazed me," Holliday grumbled, swatting a little at the probing fingers. "Robert, I'm _fine_."

They both froze at that, realizing that they'd slipped back into what was a sort of familiarity that was strange for this world, and even after a moment Bobo wasn't quite able to shake it. He grimaced, running a hand across the strip of platinum blond hair on his head, and forced himself to meet Hank's gaze. It wasn't him, he realized. It wasn't the friendship that they'd shared or the hatred that had spanned over a century. It was the fact that if he let himself dwell too long or too hard on that other world he would remember that once this was over and Clootie was finally gone for good, he would still be alone. Hank and Wynonna would get Alice back, but Bobo would still be alone. "It ain't you," he admitted after a long moment.

"Ignoring them ain't gonna make it easier."

"Ain't gonna bring them back either. C'mon. We don't stop them and we don't find out what they were hiding here."

Any argument was put on hold as Revenants followed the sound of gunfire and the two men heard more around the corner. This was happening now, and there was no stopping it. That was fine by him.

Bobo tore into the mix, his powers allowing him to stop the bullets and often return them to the source. Wynonna would have to clean up after them, but it felt damn good to cause a little bit of pain to offset what he'd been living with.

Movement caught his attention and his blue gaze snapped past the newly downed Revenants to where three looked to be getting into one of the vehicles.

"No way we're gonna make it in time," Doc growled, seeing the same thing.

Bobo flashed a feral grin. "Wanna bet?" He leapt forward, feeling the brand on his back burn with the effort as he stretched out, holding the vehicle in place. Tires spun on the icy ground and he sunk everything he'd been fighting into keeping it there. All the darkness, all the pain flooded through him and heightened the demonic power, and a half cry, half roar escaped him as the escape vehicle started to spark with the futile effort to break free of his grip. He gave another shove and the hood caved in, punched down on the engine. One of the Revenants inside was halfway to piling out of the driver's seat when Bobo dug deeper, turning the vehicle up and over so that it slammed onto the passenger's side first and then the roof, finally resting there as he struggled to pull in each breath, his outstretched hand trembling from the effort and the brand feeling like it might burn straight through him.

He saw a foot come through the window of the overturned van as the person inside tried to kick the door open and he risked a quick glance back to make sure that Hank wasn't going to get himself killed if he went to go finish what he'd started. Doc was fine and Bobo snapped his teeth together sharply as he moved towards his prey.

The figure had made it out of the vehicle by the time he got there, but they were bundled and he couldn't see the face. He reached out, one hand snagging hold of the jacket and he ripped them around, the opposite hand taking hold of the hood around their face and pulling it down, a snarl dying halfway up his throat. " _Willa_?"

A pair of hazel eyes stared up at him, wide and focused. She opened her mouth, but stopped as the sound of shattering glass signaled one of the Revenants coming out of the toppled vehicle behind them. "Robert," she managed, her voice more pained than he'd ever heard it.

He couldn't seem to form a coherent though, much less get the question out into the open. She was alive and she was _there,_ and his focus refused to move beyond that. He released his hold on her hood, hand slipping down to her face and finding blood from a cut along her eyebrow. He'd hurt her. If he'd known she was there, if he could have even let himself believe it was possible… "Willa, I-"

"I'm so sorry. This is the only way to get Grace and Wyatt back."

"What?" he managed, but he felt her shift, the movement quick as the barrel of a gun pressed just under his ribs and the shot went off. He didn't feel anything at first, just pressure that pushed him back and away from her, and his hand slipped from her face. He stood rooted to the ground where he was as she stepped back, the gun in her hand and he watched her expression close off before she turned to the Revenant that was pulling himself out of the vehicle and to his feet.

She grabbed at the gun he was leveling. "Leave him. Putting a few more holes in him won't stop him longer than that one will. Come on."

Bobo choked on her name as she turned to leave and instead of taking a step forward his knee buckled and hit the hard ground. He felt himself tip forward, gravity dragging him down, and the pain was overwhelming him now, making it difficult to breathe. He pressed a hand against the source of it and his hand came back coated in dark brown blood. She'd shot him. Willa was alive and she'd shot him.

Somewhere in the distance he could hear someone calling his name, but as he curled into himself, and dark spots were already dancing across his vision. He squeezed his eyes shut against them and he felt himself sinking.

* * *

When Doc had found him he'd already been fading towards unconsciousness, blood spilling out from both an entry and an exit wound and he'd been incoherent for just a moment before completely slipping off into the darkness. It had taken time to finish the fight that they had started even more to get the fallen Revenant back to the Homestead, and somewhere along the way he'd stopped breathing.

"How long does it take for them to… come back?" Waverly asked quietly from her place at the door, her gaze never lingering too long on the too-still Revenant where they had laid him out on the bed in the spare room.

Wynonna shrugged. "Depends, I think. It wasn't Peacemaker so he should be back soon-ish."

"Yeah, but who was it?" Nicole asked from just outside the door, drawing all of their attention to her, but then it was turned back to Doc who frowned deeply.

"I didn't see, but I'd bet money it was someone he thought he could trust. That shot was taken at point-blank range. No one else was gettin' that close when we were fightin' 'em off."

"You didn't see, so it could have been Bulshar?" Waverly murmured, and the meaning behind the question wasn't lost. Peacemaker could put a Revenant down, but there was no reason to think that the demon that had started the curse to begin with didn't have power over them as well.

"I know it took a few minutes before… with the spikes right after Bulshar came back," Jeremy offered hesitantly.

"It's been more 'n a few minutes," Doc murmured, his gaze shifting over to where Bobo lay.

"That doesn't mean it was Bulshar," Wynonna said firmly. "It could have been one of his Revenants he thought was loyal. We won't know until he wakes up, and there's no telling how long that'll be."

"I can get some breakfast started," Jeremy offered, thumbing back at the kitchen. "If you want, I mean. If we don't know how long it's going to be…."

"You cook?" Nicole asked.

"Yeah, a little."

"Might as well," Wynonna grumbled. "He's-"

Everyone looked over as Bobo twitched suddenly, a struggling cough escaping as he tried to drag in the first lungful of air in hours. Doc moved a little closer, noting the way that the Revenant's fingers were gripping the bed sheets, the skin under and around the ring that he'd woven a talisman into that allowed him onto the Homestead irritated as it started working again. Doc found himself reaching out, one hand against the injured Revenant's shoulder, and he couldn't help but see the man he'd known as a friend in a different lifetime. "Easy, Robert. Easy."

Blue eyes popped open and his back arched as he cough and struggled, Willa Earp's name escaping his lips as he came back around and Doc grimaced. "No, just me. 'N everyone else. We gotcha out of there."

Wynonna was standing now, moving to the opposite side of the bed and she drew that increasingly confused blue gaze over to her. "Hey. You're at the Homestead. You're safe, but I need to know who shot you. We need to know if there's a Revenant in your group we can't trust, if-"

"Willa."

Doc's lips twitched downward. He'd woken every night since they'd returned disoriented by the idea of being back in their own reality, so he could only imagine what coming back to life could do. "She's gone," he tried, his voice as gentle as he could manage.

"No." The word was bitten out and Bobo winced, apparently not entirely healed up yet. He forced himself up onto his elbows though, seeking out Wynonna's gaze and holding it. "She's alive. Willa's alive. She's the one that shot me."

* * *

 

Notes: I feel like this chapter fought me tooth and nail to get through it, but here we are, and all I want to do is hug Bobo and tell him it'll be okay.


	12. Part Twelve

Willa.

She had been through this already. A girl with a different name and a face that had seemed vaguely familiar that had shot Peacemaker and sent Lou screeching down to hell. Wynonna had loved her sister, but the woman that had returned to them had been a shadow of her former self. Cold and callous, willing to sacrifice anything or anyone to get what she wanted. She had blamed Bobo for a while, but the truth was that Willa had broken at some point, and no one else was going to save her. If there had been any hope of her sister coming home again, it would have been something only Willa could have chosen.

But she hadn't. She had gone wrong and Wynonna had been forced to do the one thing she swore she wouldn't: put her down. Then she had turned up in the dream world and as soon as Wynonna knew what was going on she had shut her out. There had been no way that she was real. Kind and loving and loyal…. all things she might have been without all the darkness in her life. It hurt to think about the _might have been_ 's, but Willa was dead. She was gone, and Wynonna had fixed her focus on Alice.

Now her sister was back. Again. And she had betrayed them. Again. Wynonna wasn't sure she could do it all over again.

Bobo hadn't had a lot to go off when he had woken up. He and Doc had gone after a few Revenants trying to make their escape and Bobo had toppled their escape vehicle. Wynonna had seen the aftermath of the fight and the damage done, and all she could remember thinking was that she was glad he was on their side now.

From what he had said Willa had climbed out of the toppled van, surprising him, and she'd barely hesitated when she'd pulled the trigger at point blank range before leaving with a Revenant of her own free will. It seemed pretty cut and dry. Whatever some of the others had brought with them from the dream world hadn't affected Willa.

Wynonna had stepped outside to try to find some peace from the increasingly full house only to find Bobo Del Rey balanced on the railing around the porch, long legs stretched out in front of him. He was leaned against a pole with his head tilted back, eyes closed, and the only sign that he hadn't dozed off there the fact that he hadn't dropped the cigarette dangling between two fingers. The closer she crept, though, the more she thought that might just be a matter of time. If the ash collecting at the tip was anything to go by he hadn't taken a drag in a few minutes.

She was in the process of turning to find a different place to hide away and think when a rough voice stopped her. "Looking for me or did I steal your spot?"

Blue eyes had cracked open by the time Wynonna turned back and he was watching her as he tapped his cigarette and tried to take a drag. He frowned at it, dug for his lighter, and relit it. He looked exhausted, his hands a little shaky as they worked, and she wondered if that came from dying or everything else that had happened. It had been so much easier when she hated him, when she blamed him for everything, but she'd gotten to know the man behind the demon. It made it harder to ignore the pain he couldn't keep hidden in his eyes or the stress in the way his shoulders hunched, strangely thin looking with only the thin Henley to cover them.

Wynonna cleared her throat awkwardly. "This may be one of the first times I've seen you without that obnoxious coat of yours."

"Not sure where it went yet," he answered with a shrug. "Woke up without it and my boots."

Wynonna's eyes traveled down the long legs to find sock covered feet rather than the usual heavy boots he wore. "Right, sorry. Waverly put them away when we… got you back here."

He hummed a little and took another drag of his cigarette, his gaze distant.

"Look… I'm sorry about Willa."

"Not your doing."

"Yeah, well…. still. I know I've…" She grimaced, trying to find the words and coming up short. She pulled in a deep breath, steeling herself. "I know how much you loved my sister. It can't be easy having her do this… again. Especially after everything in the dream world."

He didn't react at first, merely kept his gaze fixed on nothing as he smoked. Finally he leaned back, his head thumping lightly against the pole and he let his eyes slide closed again. "She said it was the only way."

The words were so soft that Wynonna almost didn't hear them. "What was?"

Bobo shrugged. "Shooting me, I 'spose. She said it was the only way to get the kids back."

"Bobo…."

Icy blue eyes snapped open again and he glared a little at her. "I'm not an idiot, Wynonna. I know she thinks she's struck a deal with him and that he'll never honour it." He shifted and pulled a knee up, wincing as he did and his hand went to what must have been the still-healing wound. "Desperate people do desperate things."

Wynonna stared at him. "Are you seriously telling me you're not pissed?"

"Oh, I am," he chuckled, the words drawn out. "And frustrated and _tired_. I've been at this a long time, and I did warn you, Wynonna girl. The weight on your shoulders only gets heavier. The more you give a damn, the more you've got to lose, and it _will_ drive you a little crazy if you let it." He flicked the butt of his cigarette out. "I though Josiah'd be the one to break it. He was good. Lot like his daddy, but they strung him up and I couldn't stop 'em. Couldn't have if I tried. All it'd've done was taken me down with 'im. Edwin had the drive, but no give. Your daddy…. you know all 'bout him." He tapped the bottom of his pack and knocked another cigarette out, lifting it to his lips. "Willa and I were gonna save each other. She waited for me. She…. I saved her from them and she was gonna wait 'till she was old enough to take me with her. Then there's you." He lit his cigarette and inhaled. "Wouldn'ta bet on it early on, but you're more like him than even Josiah was."

Wynonna swallowed hard. "You think I can finish this?"

"First Earp since your great-great granddaddy that I've openly aligned with. What do you think?"

"I think it wouldn't kill you to say you have faith in me, asshole," she huffed, but her lips quirked up a little as she spoke.

"I think I used up my faith a long time ago and you Earps just keep trying it."

"I'm going to finish this, Bobo. Clootie won't be coming back when I'm done with him. My daughter's life depends on it."

"And desperate people do desperate things," he said, his voice a little sad.

"Are you sticking around?" The question left her without permission, but if she were honest she had been waiting for him to leave since he'd chosen to join them. Waiting for him to choose to try to lay low and survive this in any way he could. He'd stayed longer than she might have expected, and with Willa popping back up, this might just be his breaking point.

He swung his legs over to slide off the railing, discarding his used up cigarette "Well, I was there when it started. Might as well stick it out to the end." There was more there, but she supposed she couldn't expect him to share everything. He'd been more honest with her in these last few minutes than she thought he'd been with her since they'd met. He didn't say any more as he moved back into the house, leaving her alone with her thoughts just as she had originally wanted when she'd walked out there in the first place.

* * *

When she slept she could still feel his breath against her neck, curled up behind her with his arm carefully looped around and her back against his chest. It felt comfortable. Safe. For just a moment it felt like they were still in that little house that they had bought in Purgatory and catching the last few minutes of sleep before the alarm went off and the Svane household stirred to a sleepy morning of coffee, breakfast, and work.

They'd been pulled from that world, though, and this was only the echoes of it that she saw when she let herself drift off to sleep. She wished she could enjoy it for a little while but it always went the same way.

She would wake to hear Grace crying, but no matter how hard she looked for her, she was always just beyond her reach. Every night following the one that she'd woken in the dank little cellar that Clootie had tossed her in she had searched and searched only to wake and be separated from them both.

She wasn't sure when she'd drifted off to sleep that afternoon, but when she felt him nuzzling against the nape of her neck, his voice soft and mumbling as he begged her to stay, she knew she had. It didn't matter. No matter how much she wanted to stay, the dream played out, so there was no point in delaying.

Willa wiggled out of his embrace, turning just a moment to find Robert still sleeping. He looked so peaceful like that, laid out on his side with his arm still stretched over her side of the bed, fingers loose and the lines in his face relaxed like he didn't have a care in the world. She bent down, meaning to steal a kiss, but she found herself in a hallway instead, her bedroom gone and the hall stretched on, Grace's cries echoing from somewhere down the way. A dream. Right.

Bare feet padded against the wooden floor as she made her way down, holding onto the reality of what it was. She'd never found her before like this, and she had no reason to think that this would turn out any different.

The hall ended, though, for the first time in her memory, and Willa turned, finding Grace sitting on the floor with tears in those big blue eyes and she pointed at her slipper. "Kitty threw up in my shoe, mama."

A short laugh escaped Willa as she bent down, scooping the little girl up and holding onto her, startled at how real she felt. Grace wrapped her arms around her mother's neck and buried her nose in her shoulder. "It's okay, baby," Willa promised. "We'll get it cleaned up."

"It's scary."

"What is, baby?"

"The sound."

"What so-" A loud crash cut her off, like a gunshot, and Willa tightened her grip on Grace, even as she began to squirm. She wasn't going to let her go. She wouldn't.

"Daddy," Grace said stubbornly as she tried to break free and Willa followed her gaze down the hall. She couldn't hold on any longer and the little girl squirmed loose, running down the hall to where a form lay at the other end.

Willa followed, a knot growing in her chest with each step. Grace stopped in front of him and Willa knew who it was before she saw the face, those blue eyes she knew so well wide and vacant, dark blood coating his t-shirt from the entry wound the bullet she had fired had left in him. She swallowed hard and knelt on the ground next to him, her hands trembling as she reached out to his face. He wouldn't stay dead. He couldn't. Only Peacemaker could kill him and she hadn't… she _wouldn't_ have killed him.

She jolted awake, leaned against the door in the backseat of a vehicle she and the Revenant had taken when Robert had destroyed the one that they were escaping in. Grace wasn't there and neither was Robert. In that moment she had never felt more alone.

The Revenant that had survived Robert's attack stalked over to the car and tore the back door open, snapping at her to move. She was glad that she had already woken up or she would have fallen out into a heap on the ground. Instead she leveled a glare at him as she moved past him, spotting Clootie just ahead. He tilted his chin up, strange gold gaze fixed on the Revenant. "Is that how you treat our guest?"

"No, boss," the Revenant mumbled, and Clootie barely flicked his fingers. The Revenant fell immediately, a sharp cry escaping him as he started to rithe on the ground, twitching and screaming.

Willa watched the display of power, her gaze steady and her expression blank. She could feel Clootie watching her for a reaction, for even a little discomfort as a man screaming in agony. "You tried to cross the boundary with Robert once, didn't you?"

She looked over at that. "I did."

"And?"

"Obviously it didn't work. We didn't get very far before the pain hit him."

"Miles here has never crossed the boundary, but he knows now what it feels like, don'tcha Miles?" Clootie waited a moment and nudged the now foaming Revenant in the ribs, receiving another cry of pain for his efforts. "Don't you?"

" _Yes_!" came the strangled reply and he curled into himself a little more.

Clootie snorted. "I imagine there was none of this with Robert. He's too proud. Too stubborn. It's amazing how far he's come."

"I suppose you did him a favour," Willa said, wondering if the sarcasm was as evident to the demon as it was to her.

He chuckled "I imagine he wouldn't think so, but there are dark corners in every human being that are just _waiting_ to be explored. Men like Robert used to be never have the courage to seek that out, but if nudged - even if shoved - they find that there's power in it." Clootie had moved progressively closer and closer as he spoke, stepping around the twitching Revenant at their feet and he lifted a hand to Willa's face. "You know that, don't you, my dear? You're not afraid to indulge your darker tendencies to get what you want."

The spark behind the conversation clicked with her and she met that strange gaze of his. "You found my niece."

"I did."

She waited for a moment, but the only filler to the silence between them were the now muffled cries of pain from Miles on the ground. Willa pushed a sharp breath from her nose. "And?"

He smirked at her, producing a cell phone from his coat pocket. "She's with your aunt. You're going to call Ms McCready and tell her that the war's been won and that it's time to bring Wynonna's little girl home."

Willa stood still for just a moment, staring at him rather than the outstretched phone. This was the moment where she decided how far she was going to take this. She could call Gus. She could even convince her that she needed to bring Alice, but then the little girl's life would be in danger. If she didn't, though, then Clootie would know that she'd been playing him and she'd lose any opportunity to find a way to take him out for good.

Her gaze shifted down to the phone and she reached up, snagging it from him. "If you want me to make the call, shut him up."

Clootie smirked and the Revenant went utterly silent at the twitch of his wrist, and if Willa didn't know better she would have thought he was dead. Maybe he was. She pulled in a deep breath and hit send on the number pre-dialed for her.

* * *

The house had gone quiet in the mid afternoon as energy started running dry, the sleepless night catching up with them and leaving them drained. Waverly couldn't sleep though, no matter how tired she was. Nicole had gone into the sheriff's station to get some work done and Waverly hadn't gotten back to sleep since she left.

Finally she gave up trying, swinging her legs over the side of her bed and reaching for her sweater to pull around her shoulders.

The house was dead quiet, which was strange for as many people as it held when she had dozed off. The only sound she heard was a rummaging sound from the front and she moved towards it, wondering if she should have grabbed a weapon.

The fight or flight reaction dissipated as soon as she saw the culprit behind the noise. Bobo was looking for something in the front closet, coat hangers scraping across the metal pole they were hung on. He didn't seem to notice as Waverly made her way down the stairs. She cleared her throat, finally drawing his attention. "If you're looking for your stuff, it's in the closet in the room you were sleeping in."

"Ah," he managed, turning towards what had become a spare bedroom at some point, his focus switched over to that closet instead.

Waverly followed quietly, watching his movements and frowning a little. He was stiff and much slower than usual as he pulled the door open and found what he was looking for, his shoulders a little more hunched down, and when she caught sight of his eyes as he turned to take a heavy seat on the bed to work his feet into his boots, she saw how tired he looked. "Was that the first time you've slept?"

He looked up, blinking owlishly at her. "What'd you mean?"

"Since we got back. Have you slept at all this week?"

"Been sleepin' a lot since last night."

"Not sure being dead counts."

He snorted, a very small smile tilting his lips. "You worried about me, Angel?" He stopped then, the pet name almost swallowed at the end as he spoke it, and Waverly pressed her lips together a little. Angel. He'd called her his angel since she was small, but in the dream world, in a world where Robert Svane hadn't begged for his Angel's name as he had died, that had been Grace's nickname. His daughter. Her own connection to Bobo was still so complicated and there was so much that he flat-out refused to tell her that she didn't even want to contemplate how the dream world had laid that one out. She couldn't focus on it, not now. It didn't matter. Not right then, with the struck look that he was so desperately trying to hide behind a mask of indifference.

"Yeah, between you and Wynonna trying to ignore how much pain you guys are in, I've got my hands full," she said, her voice gentle and she tried to keep it at least a little light.

"Gotta stay focused. We're too close to let it slip now," he huffed, standing to shrug his coat on.

"Are you going somewhere?"

"Out. Makes them nervous when I disappear for long stretches and as useless as some of 'em are, better to have them on our side than Clootie's."

Waverly nodded slowly. " I mean… you were kinda dead. Are you up to it?"

He snorted a mirthless chuckle. "I'll live," he promised with a wink as he passed by her.

Waverly didn't chase him down. Like Wynonna, all she could do was say her piece and he would either come around on his own or get slammed in the face by what he was trying to avoid. With Willa alive and working against them, she worried it would be sooner rather than later.

* * *

Just as he'd predicted the Revenants answering to him were tied up in knots that he had disappeared after following the lead Freddy had given him. He was the one standing not just between them and Clootie, but between them and the Heir when this was all said and done. The deal struck for their freedom after after Bulshar's defeat had been negotiated by Bobo himself. If he didn't make it through this, they had no reason to believe that they would have friends on any side. He was their hope of getting out of this.

He'd settled the questions down, leaving out the part about dying. Leaving out most of what happen, if he thought about it too hard. It always had been better if they saw him as invincible.

Bobo was on his way towards Shorty's when movement caught his eye. When he looked there was no one there, but ten steps later he caught the same out of the corner of his eye. Someone thought they were being clever.

He slipped into a back alley, keying in on the presence following him. He slowed his pace, waiting until the soft footsteps drew closer.

"Robert." His whispered name made him turn quicker than he had intended to and he knew the voice before he saw the face. Bobo tensed, ready for whatever fight was about to break out, but Willa stood with her hands held up in a non-threatening manner. "I'm not here to hurt you."

"That's rich, coming from you," he growled, putting a step between them. He didn't trust her, but he had no interest in fighting her. Of all the people he could and would tear into without a second thought, he knew that that was a line even he couldn't cross. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if he truly hurt her.

She reached out as he stepped back. "I'm sorry. I needed them to believe me."

"And now you need me to believe you," he snapped, his voice low and rough. "Funny how that works."

Her hand dropped, never quite touching him and she pursed her lips together like she was looking for the right words. He frowned, a low growl escaping him. "Save it. I've been betrayed enough to know what it looks like. If you're fool enough to trust whatever bullshit Clootie's fed you, do what you do best. Go at it alone."

A small, startled sound left her at the words and something in him felt a little sick satisfaction from it. She pulled in a trembling breath, her eyes squeezing closed. "Okay," she breathed out. "Okay. We don't have time for your trust issues right now."

"Trust issues?" he snarled, his temper flaring dangerously and he re-took that step forward, causing her to back away from him and against the wall. "Wonder where I could have picked those up. I trusted _you_ , Willa. I put everything on hold to look for you when Constance took you. _Everything_. But you left me to rot, same as Wyatt. We get a second chance and you choose _Clootie_. How do you 'spose I came by my _trust issues_? Don't you dare tell me you're doin' it for Gracie. You-"

The blow snapped his head around hard enough to hurt, his cheek and jaw burning from the open-handed slap. When he turned back she was fuming. "Hate me all you want for leaving you, Robert, but I would _never_ risk Grace's soul just to get her back. What would be the _point_?"

He stared at her and he could feel the anger rolling off if her in waves.

She stepped forward so that there were only inches between then, holding his gaze stubbornly. "The only chance we have of getting her back - of getting them _both_ back - is ending Clootie once and for all and freeing _you_. I can find a way to do that if he trusts me. We end this curse and we get our children back."

Wanting to trust and so many betrayals that came before warred against each other inside him and Bobo let his eyes slip closed, the anger flooding out of him and leaving him feeling empty and hurt. The anger was easier. The anger was always easier.

He swallowed hard, and when he reopened his eyes her gaze had softened. She reached up, her touch gentle bow, and she ran her thumb across the side of his face she had hit just moments before. "I know," she whispered, her voice straIned. "I know what you've been through. I know how you shove it aside and how you can't let anyone see. I know it now more than I ever could before, and Robert I _am_ sorry, but I can't change what I did. I can't fix that, but we can end this curse and a chance at something like the life we lived in that dream world. Not perfect, but better. I want that chance, and I'm willing to risk everything to get it."

Bobo's hand found the side of her face and he leaned down, his lips pressed against hers and he felt her own grip shift, one hand slipping around to the back of his neck to pull him in closer and the other sliding down his chest and gripping his t-shirt. He flinched a little, half expecting the freshly-healed wound to still be tender and she pulled back. "I'm sorry," she whispered, and this time he couldn't help but believe her in that.

He pulled in a breath and leaned his forehead against hers. "I want to trust you, Willa. Give me something, anything-"

"Alice." She pulled back, almost like she was startled. "That was why I came looking for you. To warn you. Clootie wanted proof of loyalty."

"Of course he did."

"He had me make a call to Gus."

She paused for a moment and Bobo shrugged. "'Bout what?"

"That's who Wynonna has watching Alice. He had me call her and convince her to bring Alice here."

Blue eyes blinked. "He knows where she is but he's having her brought here? Not going there?"

"What are you thinking?"

"That Clootie's trapped here same as the rest of us. He kills the Heirs and the curse is done. He's free. He wouldn't risk bringing her here unless he had to and he ain't gonna risk-" His gaze shifted to Willa. "You're not goin' back."

"Like hell I'm not," she snapped.

"No, no, no. You've served your purpose. He ain't gonna take the risk in letting you live and having Peacemaker choose you again."

"I have to go back, Robert. I don't have anything on him yet. That's the whole point." She caught his wandering gaze. "I may not be the Earp Heir anymore, and I can live with that. I'm okay with that, but I'm not okay with him winning. If he wins you and I lose everything, and I'll burn this whole damn town to the ground before I let him touch my family again. _Any_ of my family."

He loosed a frustrated growl. He knew that tone and there was no use arguing it. "Make yourself indispensable," he instructed, leaning his forehead against hers again and speaking lowly. "Make him think he can't do this without you."

"How?"

"That's something you'll have to find. You can. You're clever."

"Clever as Wynonna?" she teased softly.

"Runs in the family," he assured her. "Play on his vanity, do what you have to, and trust _no one_. You're in with your enemies, Willa. There's nothing easy about it."

"You did it for years," she murmured and Bobo snorted.

"Take it from my experience: it's exhausting. Find what you need and get out." He paused, feeling a knot forming in his chest and he kissed her again. "Don't leave me again."

"Never," she swore. "Go. Warn Wynonna. Be careful." Her fingers brushed along the side of his face. "I love you, Robert. I've never said that enough here, but I love you."

"Love you too. Now go. Before you tip your hand."

It was everything he could do to release her, but he had to. It was that or force her to come back to the Homestead with him. She was right though. Finding Clootie's weakness was their best bet, and if they wanted to end this, if they wanted a chance at anything more than the suffering they had all known for so long, they had to be willing to risk everything.

* * *

 

Notes: So, the last chapter I had trouble bringing together and this one was a freakin' kick to the feels to write. And poor Bobo. One of my favourite scenes is from S1 where he pulls Peacemaker from Wynonna and tells her that the weight is only going to get heavier. I love that so much. He sounds like he's speaking form so much experience and I'm really hoping that S3 will open up doors to allow those two to have serious conversations and land on the same side of things.


	13. Part Thirteen

****

Decisions were a part of life. Good, bad, somewhere in between, Wynonna had made plenty of them. She had decided to pull the trigger that had killed her daddy when she was trying to save him and she had decided to run when she had the chance. She'd decided to travel the world and indulge in whatever caught her fancy at the time and she had decided to come home to pay her respects when her uncle had died. She hadn't decided to become the Heir. No, that choice wasn't hers, but she had decided to fight. She had decided it mattered. Her friends, her family, her town.

Alice hadn't been her choice either, but once she had her there wasn't a thing in the world more important than her little girl, but it had been her decision to give her a chance to live while she fought for her future.

Wynonna had decided to trust Bobo Del Rey. That had been a day she never thought she'd see, but somehow it had worked out. She could still remember the blur of rage and terror when Bulshar had taken Waverly. Doc had said that Bobo had offered her up, and if he had been the one to snatch her or not, he was responsible. Wynonna had raged and she had threatened, ready to storm wherever the hell that demon bastard was and save her sister, but they didn't have the chance. Bobo Del Rey had shown up at Shorty's where they were held up with Waverly in his arms. She had been a little banged up, a concussion from the blow that had knocked them out in their escape the worst of it. All in all she had been alright. Possibly better off than the scowling, twitchy Revenant had been at the time.

It had taken time, but Wynonna and Bobo had learned to trust each other after that. It had been a two-way street of distrust, both chipping away little by little. She'd found out just how deeply those trust issues had run with him over their time working together - stories here and there that he let slip and things she already knew - by how slowly he'd let them in. Wynonna knew just how difficult it was to earn his trust, and now he was asking her to trust him when it came to her other sister.

Wynonna frowned deeply, her gaze meeting that icy blue one that was fixed on her with more focus than he had a right to have. Willa had sought him out and had warned him - well, he called it a warning, she called it a trap - that Alice was in danger. He had a point in that Willa, no matter how clever, had no way to know that Gus had moved out of the Triangle, much less that Wynonna had sent her daughter to her. Bobo hadn't even known that tidbit of information. It was enough to make her uncomfortable, and enough to have her dialing the number as she side-eyed the Revenant who was still staring at her in that infuriating way that said he was judging her for every second she'd wasted arguing him on it. Yeah, no matter how their dynamic changed, she would always find moments when she wanted to shoot the bastard in the face.

"Wynonna?"

The startled sound on the other end of the line pulled Wynonna out of her thoughts and she purposefully turned her back to Bobo. Well, Doc and Waverly's anxious looks weren't any better. She squeezed her eyes shut. "Gus, hey. Weird question, and I swear it's not as weird as it sounds-"

"I got a call from Willa this morning."

Blue eyes popped back open. "Shit."

"Yeah, nice to know your sister is alive… again."

"Yeah, that's just the way the Earps roll. You know that. Please tell me you're not on your way to Purgatory."

"She said you beat Bulshar and that you were in the hospital."

Wynonna felt the knot in her chest tighten. "Gus, you're not bringing Alice, are you?"

"What do you take me for, Wynonna? Of course I'm not bringing your daughter back without knowing for sure. Willa was… strange. Not that talking to a dead woman ain't strange to begin with, but it's not like it hasn't happened before. I hopped on the first flight to the Big City that I could get and I came in alone. Driving in to the Homestead now."

The Earp Heir pulled in a deep breath, steadying herself. Of course Gus had known not to bring Alice in without talking to her first. Gus wasn't an idiot and that's why she'd sent Alice to her to begin with. They could contain this. They could… shit. She looked over to Bobo who was waiting for the outcome of the conversation. "I'll meet you at the house, Gus. Go straight there. You know where the key is hidden. Go in, don't leave the property for anything, you hear me?"

"Wynonna, was that really Willa?"

"It's a long story. I'll tell you when we get there." She ended the call and found all eyes on her now. She pulled in a deep breath. "Gus is on her way to the Homestead. She knew better than to bring Alice without clearing it with me personally."

She thought she saw a small flash of relief in Bobo's eyes. "There ya have it."

"There I have what?" She squared her shoulders as she held his gaze, daring him to push her on this. "All we have is proof Willa tried to hand my daughter over to Bulshar Clootie. That's not exactly a point in her favour."

"You do what you got to to make them believe you."

"Speaking from experience?"

"Yeah," he said, his teeth click shut at the end of the word.

"Trusting Willa or not needs to be tabled," Dolls said from his place and Wynonna had never been more grateful for him putting them back on track. "We need to meet up with Gus, find out exactly what was said and where we are, and then get ready."

"Bulshar's going to move on this," Nicole agreed. "We're on a timeclock from the moment Gus crosses the town line."

"We can use this against him," Bobo murmured.

Dolls grabbed for his gun to holster it and moved to the safe. "Only if we've got a plan that we're all in on," he said pointedly. "Gear up, people. We need to be ready for anything."

* * *

He knew there was something wrong the moment he crossed the boundary onto the Homestead. The talisman worked into his ring allowed him to walk the grounds without being tossed off like any other Revenant was a constant reminder against his skin from the moment that his boot touched Earp land. It burned, not enough to be much more than a mild irritation that could be pushed to the back of his mind for more important issues at hand, but it was always there. That evening, as the sun was dropping down below the horizon, there was no irritation, no sign that the talisman was working, but he stood firmly on the Earp side of the fence.

"Bobo?" The others had piled out of the vehicles and had gone on ahead to the house, but he saw his angel stop and turn, watching him carefully when she realized that he hadn't moved with the rest of them.

He didn't answer right away, instead looked down to his hand, flexing his fingers and trying to decide how badly he really needed to commit to testing the theory. He'd been thrown off the Homestead before. It wasn't pleasant, and he would be tossed quite a ways from the drive to the edge of the property, but if the ammolite wasn't working, things were worse than they had imagined.

"What's-"

He motioned, easing himself out of the SUV he'd ridden in. No need to go through the back of the vehicle. He pushed a breath out through his nose, closed his eyes, and wiggled the ring from its place. It came off easily enough and he opened his eyes to take a closer look. Nothing. No reaction. His skin wasn't even red where it had been. "We have a problem."

Waverly's brows drew together before realization seemed to dawn. "Shit," she muttered and Bobo was already moving past her, long legs carrying him up the step and through the front door.

They had beat Gus there, if the lack of rental car outside was any indication, but the others were scurrying in every direction as their movement would somehow distract them from the rising anxiety that was hanging in the air. There were too many unknowns and it was all coming to a point. After so long, this was it, and they weren't ready for it. Not really.

Bobo reached out, his fingers catching old of her arm before she could blow past him. "Wynonna."

The Heir stopped, frustration flashing dangerously through her eyes at being halted, but it eased as she met his gaze. "What?"

"The ammolite's not working," Waverly said from behind him and he watched the older Earp sister's eyes widen just a fraction, readjusting to look at him.

"Are you sure?"

Bobo resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the questions he already knew the answer to. He made a show of removing his ring and wiggling his fingers in front of her.

"Okay… okay, so this had to be done while we were gone this evening, right? You would have noticed it earlier?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. I've been a bit… distracted," he pointed out, hating it even as he admitted to it. There was no use in denying what had been obvious. Between Willa being alive and shooting him and resurrecting, he'd had a few things to vye for his attention in the nearly twenty-four hours.

"But it had to be an Earp that buried the talisman, right?" Waverly asked. "So does that mean Willa would have-"

"Doesn't have to be."

"But when I was a kid, you said…." She snapped her mouth shut and he was at least a little grateful that she wasn't going to make him discuss that particular manipulation, especially with the judgment that always followed one of those conversations. They just didn't have the time for it.

"Just needed to be someone who could get on the land to begin with. Clootie's got a few humans with him. Some brought over that were loyal in the trailer park for the last few years, some that I didn't recognize right away."

"There's a cult that's been waiting for him," Nicole murmured. "Any one of them could have come on if we weren't here."

"I don't guess you can sense the thing," Dolls asked and Bobo shot him a withering look.

Jeremy dropped one of the duffles they'd brought full of firepower from Dolls' safe on the floor. "It's buried, right? It'll be pretty obvious that the dirt's been dug up."

"The Homestead is ten acres," Wynonna argued.

"But they won't have risked comin' in far," Doc countered.

Jeremy nodded enthusiastically. "Right, so we should be able to track it down. Doc and… maybe Bobo? Since you know what it looks like?"

The Revenant gave a huff of acknowledgement before turning to Wynonna. "They're gonna bring the fight here. No other reason for them to have done it."

She nodded, pinching the bridge of her nose. "If the talisman is buried anyway, do you think it's worth bringing in the Revenants still loyal to you just to have the numbers?"

Thin lips twitched downward. "No, I don't trust them that far." He turned, motioning to Holliday and Junior. "We're losing what's left of the daylight."

Bobo shot for the door, tired of wasting time they didn't have. He pulled it open roughly and found a startled Gus McCready standing on the other side of it. She blinked at him, obviously startled by finding Bobo Del Rey in her nieces' home. It didn't take more than half a beat for her to regain her composure and suddenly Bobo was staring down the barrel of a pistol. "What the hell are you doing here?" Gus demanded.

"Trying to put Clootie down permanently," he drawled, pushing the gun out of his face with one finger. "I don't have time for this." He shoved past her, hearing Doc offer up his charms and Jeremy stuttering behind him. It didn't matter. Wynonna would sort out whatever needed to be sorted. Right then, all he could think about was keeping Clootie and the other Revenants off of Earp land until they were able to come up with a plan.

* * *

"What the hell is Bobo Del Rey doing in this house?" Aunt Gus demanded as she barreled in, the boys already making their way to the barn for what they'd need to dig up any talisman found, and Waverly saw Wynonna try to wave Gus down.

"He's working with us. It's… complicated."

"You know who that bastard is, Wynonna. The demons answer to him. Everything that's happened to this family… your father, Willa, Curtis. Everyone we've lost has been because of them, and you give him half a chance and he'll hurt that little girl of yours."

It was impossible to put everything into words for someone who hadn't been through it, and Waverly saw her sister trying to find a way to do it. Everything that Wynonna had learned about Robert Svane from her vision question helped to make sense of why Bobo Del Rey would willingly switch sides and choose to fight the Call that Bulshar made to every demonic soul that his curse had dragged back up from the flames of hell with each new Heir coming of age. Waverly had seen it first hand when Bulshar had taken her and Bobo had had to make the choice between allowing him to have her or standing between Clootie and yet another Earp, even if not by blood. He'd chosen the latter when he could find no way around it that would keep Waverly safe and for the first time since she was a little girl, Waverly had felt safe with him. They'd worked together after that and then there was the dream world, which had only deepened those bonds. He was Wynonna and her brother-in-law, even if not in this reality. Some of that lingered, but how were they supposed to explain that to Gus who had only seen the demon?

"He won't." It took Waverly a moment and all eyes turning on her to realize she'd been the one to speak. She swallowed hard. "You haven't been here. You haven't seen what he's been willing to give up or what he has lost to make this happen."

"He's proven himself," Dolls said in a tone that closed the argument. They didn't have time to try to convince Gus of something she would have to see to believe. "Things have escalated since Wynonna talked to you earlier. Were you followed?"

Gus quirked an eyebrow. "From the moment I crossed into the triangle in the Big City to the one where they blew their tire on the back road near the lake. Pretty sure they knew where I was headin' anyway."

Waverly choked on a laugh, imagining Revenants trying to keep up with Aunt Gus and failing miserably.

"But they couldn't see that you didn't bring Alice?" Dolls asked.

Nicole stepped forward, her eyes locking with his darker ones. "What are you thinking?"

"That we need time. Bobo's right. They didn't bury a talisman on the Homestead for kicks. They're planning something, and we need time to prepare. Preferably to find it and throw a wrench in their plan."

"It would make sense for me to just turn around and drive Alice right back out as soon as I got here," Gus offered. "Make 'em chase me."

"Bulshar won't send Revenants like the ones that tried to follow you here, Gus," Wynonna said. "He'll send ones ready to kill."

"I'll go."

All eyes turned on Waverly and the arguments came from all sides. She waved them down, frustrated. "Listen, listen! I may not be an Earp by blood, but this has always been my fight. I'll get them to chase after me, distract them, and it'll give the boys enough time to find the talisman. Nicole or Dolls could even follow in case I need any backup."

"Yeah, no chance you won't need back up. I'm going with you," Nicole said.

Waverly glanced over to Wynonna who was chewing on her lip and looking very unconvinced. "Fine," she huffed at last, stepping forward and pulling her into a hug. "Fine. Just… be careful, baby girl."

"Always."

* * *

The Earp Homestead never seemed quite that large until you had to go searching for something. Doc was, anyone would readily admit, an expert tracker, but he had to have a clue to where the Revenants' familiar came in before he could start following the signs of where they had gone.

Jeremy had a map displayed on one of his handheld tablets, and he was running some sort of test that Doc still wasn't quite sure he understood while he and Bobo were scouting out signs of anything recently buried the old fashioned way.

The setting sun was casting shadows, makes me it difficult to see clearly. He squinted hard against it, but every blade of grass that looked bent was shadowed as he moved closer, making it difficult to find the entry point.

"Hank."

Doc looked over, finding Bobo crouched down and examining something. He inched closer to see what looked like dirt turned over by a boot and he frowned. "How the hell did you see that in this lighting?"

A pair of icy blue eyes blinked up at him and he snorted, seemingly amused. "'Spose hell's flames are kinda like laser surgery."

"Well, if nothin' else I walked away from the dream world with a bit more understandin' of this one," Doc chuckled, bending to look at what the Revenant had found. His nimble fingers touched the bent grass and turned dirt, risking a glance up to find sharp eyes watching his progress. Modern oddities weren't the only things that the dream world had helped shed light on, even if some of that understanding only added to the complication.

Doc had never understood what Wyatt saw in Robert Svane in their day. Wyatt had talked about him enough for the ill gunslinger to have recognized the soft spoken man the first time he'd turned up in the saloon - or even the second - with a message from Wyatt, even if he'd made sure that he never let on. It had been bad enough that Doc had been replaced when his health deteriorated, but to be replaced by a mouse of a man like Svane had only added insult to injury. He hadn't given a damn how clever he was or how loyal. He was Doc Holliday. Wyatt had no business replacing him, and when the lanky, bespectacled man had shown up Doc hadn't bothered to curb his own sharp and cutting wit to make damn sure that Robert had known he was nobody of any importance. Just a messenger. Just a passing fancy for Wyatt to take note of and eventually to grow bored of and move on. To prove - both to Svane and to himself - that he was not Doc's replacement.

All the things he had thought he knew about him, all the weaknesses and shortcomings that he had been so certain he read like any good poker player would, hadn't quite been the whole story. He'd gotten to know the Robert in the dream world that Wyatt had spoken so fondly of, and even in a different setting some of the quirks that Wyatt had chuckled over had bled through, leaving Doc with a better understanding. He was calm, but when the situation called for it he was firm. Clever, with a quiet sharp wit, and he was loyal as hell.

"What?" Bobo huffed, stooping down to look at the almost completely forgotten starting point that Doc had been crouched at and the other man realized he had been chuckling to himself.

"Oh, one memory led to another and I find myself thinking about that old bridge cross the river. You know the one not too far outside of Purgatory?"

The Revenant made a small sound of amusement. "The one you jumped off into the water when it was, what? Forty degrees out?"

"You followed me."

He got a smirk on that one. "I wasn't going to let you freeze alone." Then Bobo seemed to catch himself at having slipped into talking about the dream world as if it were still their reality and the smile immediately faded, his lips twitching downward as if for good measure. "What's that got to do with this?"

Doc stood a little, never quite straightening and following the trail. "Not this, directly, just how things make more sense. I never got just what Wyatt saw in you back in our day, or even… why we should trust you here and now. Didn' make a lick of sense."

"Wouldn't expect you to follow it," Bobo answered, his voice a little more closed off again, though if Doc knew him - and he did, better than either of them would have ever thought that he could - the conversation was weighing on him. He looked up, his own blue eyes catching the other man's paler gaze.

"Just mean that I saw your loyalty first hand and it makes more sense now. Here we are."

Bobo swung the shovel he'd been carrying around. "Let's get it up."

Doc turned to holler at Jeremy, but the boy was entranced by his calculations. Not like he'd hear him anyway, so he stepped back over to where the second shovel was leaned against the fence and moved to help dig.

The ground was hard, half frozen, and the only sound between them for a long moment was metal hitting unyielding dirt. Finally Bobo stopped, a low growl escaping him, the words riding out on it. "Wyatt went looking for you."

It took a long moment for Doc to work through the quiet words, replaying them in his head to make sure he'd heard them correctly. Shock shifted abruptly into anger without warning, the realization that Bobo had known that little piece of information for years - all through Doc's time in the well, during their brief and unsteady truce when he'd first gotten out, and on through the alliance that Bobo had made with Wynonna - hitting so hard in was physically painful. He'd known all this time, known what that would mean to him, and he'd purposefully kept it. Well, he supposed that was one way to be reminded that Bobo Del Rey was as different from the Robert Svane he'd befriended in that other world as he could be. "And you're just thinkin' t' mention?"

Bobo shot him a guarded look, pushing a long breath out through his nose. "After I'd been shot, after Clootie was dead… that's Wyatt went lookin' for you."

Wide blue eyes blinked hard and he wasn't sure what to say. The anger hadn't dissipated, but he could hear the pain in the other man's voice and he wondered if the judgement had come sooner than it should have.

The Revenant dug the shovel deep into the hard dirt, his heavy boot pushing it further. "I'd served my purpose, I'd been there with him to kill Clootie, so he went to look for you."

Doc loosed a long sigh. "Why now?" he asked again, though the accusation had washed out of the question.

"Loyalty, I 'spose." The words were soft as a confession in church and Doc felt his own lips twitch upward.

"You're a bastard."

Those eyes were a little more familiar with mischief in them. "And you're an asshole." He stopped, looking down, and he dropped to one knee and started pulling back the chunky, icy dirt with his bare hands. Doc watched as he pulled a string of bones up from their shallow grave. "Well there we have it."

"So now what?"

"Break it, toss it. Should do the trick."

Doc watched long fingers work at the structure of the talisman and pull it apart, moving steadily to the fenceline as he did.

"You got something like that worked into that ring?"

Bobo hummed an affirmation as he pulled back launching the bones out.

"Guys! Guys! We've got a…." Jeremy slammed to a stop as he reached them, looking between them. "Was that… what I thought it was?"

"It was, but it didn't work," Bobo said, his voice low and dangerous, thumb playing with the ring that held his own talisman that let him onto the land.

"So it's not the bones?" Doc asked.

"No, it is. I mean, it has to be," Jeremy managed, half tripping over his own words as he turned his tablet around. "Look, these are all the likely spots that the algorithm gave me at first, right? Then we've got…."

The page shifted and Doc blinked at it in the dimming light as it only took a few away. "Well what's that?"

"That's where it - they - should be."

"They buried more than one."

"Lots more."

"Shit."

"Yeah. Major shit. Very major shit. I don't know if we can get to all of these in time. I mean-"

"We can't," Bobo cut him off and Doc followed his sharp gaze and frowned. They were shadows, but he wagered the Revenant could see them much clearer than he ever could. "They're already here."

* * *

Notes: I tend to check on the wordcount at various points while writing a chapter, just to make sure that it's not absurdly long or absurdly short, and I'm glad I did on this one. I expected to be at about 2 - 2.5K when I checked at the end of that last scene and... well there I was at nearly 4.5K lol

Seems like a nice cliffhanger though. I'm super excited to get started on that next scene though. It's going to be a Willa and Waverly scene :D


	14. Part Fourteen

 

The tires squealed on the pavement and Waverly found herself hoping that someone had had the wherewithal to call Nedley and make sure that Lonnie or some other idiot in the department wasn’t going to see an unmarked car and think they were going to get the thrill of their career in a high speed chase through Purgatory. The last thing that they needed was some average Joe trying to get into the middle of a fight with an ancient demon that had started the whole Earp Curse to begin with. 

Waverly had done her share of research into Clootie when he had been resurrected. There wasn't a lot, and the only reference that she had found to the fact that the sheriff had been an actual demon was the letter that Wyatt had left for Robert Svane after his death, but there was enough from that time to know that he had been a terror on this town then, and would be again if given half the chance. She knew from her brief time in his camp that he enjoyed inflicting pain in any way that he could. Those that followed him lived in fear of falling short and those that didn’t rarely lasted long. Even Bobo hadn’t been certain that they’d get out when they had run, and for the first time she’d seen real fear in the Revenant’s clear blue eyes. 

If they were caught that day, if Bulshar realized that he had been tricked, there wouldn’t be a lot of hope for them. They just had to keep them occupied - and stay clear of them - long enough for the others to clear the Homestead. 

“They're not screwing around,” Nicole managed as she jerked the wheel to the right to avoid the SUV that was barreling at them, trying to cut off their path to the county line. 

Waverly risked a glance over at her before reaching for a pistol. It wasn’t her weapon of choice, but it’d do for what she had planned. “Neither are we.” 

Nicole looked at her like she’d lost her mind as she rolled down the window on the passenger’s side, leaned out, and took aim. The shot pinged off of the front of the Revenants’ SUV and they swerved, trying to get out of her direct line of shot. “Left!” Waverly shouted and barely pulled herself back in as Nicole swerved. 

“Hold on!” 

The question never made it from her lips as Nicole slammed on her breaks, spinning the wheel as she did and the tires sang out as the vehicle turned so that she could take aim again. 

“Woh,” she managed to breathe before  leaning back out the window. The Revenants were aimed right for them and Waverly shot, the bullet hitting the windshield this time and she saw the effect it finding the driver on the other side. It wouldn’t last, but it’d bring the pain.

“Waves!” Nicole shouted, but the SUV was already barreling into them, the temporarily dead driver no longer in control, and Nicole couldn’t pull entirely away. The vehicles clipped each other, sending both spinning and the one they were in up, over the curb, and into a lamppost. 

Waverly groaned as she lifted a hand to the side of her face that had found the door frame, but it came away clean. She blinked had and looked over. “Nicole? Babe? Nicole!”

“Yep, right here,” the redhead groaned, coming around and wincing. 

“We have to go!”

“We have to…. Oh.” She didn’t get the door open on the first try, but managed on the second, and Waverly piled over the console in the center and out the door being her so fast that she nearly slammed into her as Nicole stopped, a grim look on her face as she slowly raised her hands.

The Revenant that had rounded the back of their SUV smirked. “Looks like the Earp party is down two chickies. Bobo ain’t around to protect you now, little sister.”

The shot went off and Waverly sucked in a breath, but no pain hit and Nicole didn’t drop in front of her. Instead, it was the Revenant that hit the ground hard, blood pooling beneath him and revealing Willa behind him. She stood, gun in hand, and frowning at him. “Stupid bastard just can’t follow simple instructions.”

Waverly didn’t dare speak, barely moved enough to breathe, and when her sister looked over at her she wasn’t sure exactly what she was going to see. Was this the Willa she’d known all her life? The one that had tried to drown her and been completely on board with the whole destroy-Purgatory-and-run plan? Or was this the Willa from the dream world that had been the big sister that had been so damned relieved  _ not _ to be the Heir? They still hadn’t been as close as Wynonna had been with either of them individually in that world, but they loved each other. They respected each other. They  _ trusted _ each other. Now, as Waverly stood staring at the woman who was back from the dead yet again, she didn’t know who she was.

Willa blinked hard, tucking her weapon in a back holster. “You guys okay?” she asked as she moved to wrap an arm first around Waverly and then to pull Nicole into the hug as well. 

“Uh…. I think so?” Nicole tried, the hesitation obvious in her voice and Willa released them.

“Please tell me Robert’s had a chance to talk to you guys. I’ve been trying to-”

“Find Clootie’s weakness, yeah. We know,” Waverly finished. “It’s just…”

“Kinda want to make sure one of us doesn’t get shot by  you,” Nicole added in. “You know, again.”

Willa stared for a moment, realization flittering across her expression. “Oh wow. I  _ did _ shoot you, didn’t I?”

“Yeah you did.”

There was an expression that Waverly had become accustomed to over the last handful of days that they had been back from the dream world that every one of them wore when they found themselves trying to sort through memories, and Willa wore it well. It shifted and twisted and morphed before she turned to look at Nicole fully. “I’m so sorry, Nicole.”

Brown eyes blinked hesitantly. “It’s, uh… Maybe just stay on the same side this time?”

Music sounded off from Waverly’s pocket and she dug her phone out. “Dolls, did you guys find the talisman?”

“ _ We found one. There were a lot of them, and they’re here. Bring the guns you took with you _ .”

A chill ran up Waverly’s spine. “We’re on our way, and we have Willa. We’ll be there soon.”

“They didn’t find it in time?” Nicole asked, worry edging her voice.

“There were more than they thought.” She looked over to see her sister’s gaze shifting around them. “What?”

“I knew it was too easy…. Clootie sending me here. He has to know.”

“It’s okay. We’ll still get him. Right now, we just have to get back to the Homestead and make sure that those shittickets don’t take our home again.”

She saw the fire light in Willa’s eyes. “I can get behind that,” she said firmly and motioned to the other vehicle that hadn’t been nearly as damaged in the collision. The three women piled in and sped off towards the Homestead, hoping that they weren’t too late.

 

* * *

  
  
  


She should have known something was wrong when Clootie had agreed to let her go so easily. There hadn’t been time to truly earn his trust, but Willa had brushed it off by telling herself that she hadn’t been sent alone and that his entire purpose of having her there with him was to kill the Earp Heirs. It had made sense that she’d be there to stop Alice’s escape. Or it had, when she’d ignored all the signs. 

The battle was already in full swing as they pulled around the back, mowing over a couple of Revenants before slamming the stolen SUV into park. Alice was safe, but it was time to make sure the rest of them got out of this alive as well. 

Waverly had traded her pistol for a shotgun and Willa had taken the extra gun to pair with her own. All three women leapt from the vehicle guns blazing and Willa pushed down that creeping feeling that Clootie was there. On the Homestead. This could end.

She stepped around and found herself back to back with her sister, and Willa couldn’t help the flood of dream memories from their childhood in that world. Daddy had trained her early on, but when it had been obvious that Peacemaker had made a different call he’d shifted to using Willa as an example to help train Waverly. The two had play-fought in their younger years before Willa had purposefully distanced herself from it all, but somehow, dream or not, it fell right back into place. “Well, we always said we needed to get out to the Homestead more.”

Waverly barked a short laugh. “I’m glad you’re not dead.”

“Me too.”

“And  _ really _ glad you didn’t betray us… you know, again.”

Something clicked in the back of Willa’s mind and her eyes darted to the left, finding a Revenant taking aim, and she shot. The bullet found its mark between his eyes and he went flying backwards, a small smile quirking her lips up. “Me too, Waves. Be careful. Clootie didn’t say anything about going after you, but you’d be next in line if something happened to Wynonna and Alice. He and ont pass up a chance to take you out too.” 

She turned when Waverly didn’t answer and saw a strange expression crossing her sister’s face, but she only pressed her lips together like she was trying to decide if she should respond or not. It must have been hard for her to have come back to being the third sister without Peacemaker after everything they had lived through. Willa knew how much she’d loved being the Heir, and just how  _ good _ she’d been at it. There’d be time later to work through that. They couldn’t dwell on it now.

They had made it around to the back of the house and Nicole motioned them inside, the barrier there down just long enough for them to scurry inside before the back door was barred again. 

Wynonna rushed Waverly first, pulling the youngest Earp sister into a tight hug and muttering in her ear. Waverly returned the hug and when they released each other Willa found herself the center of their middle sister’s attention, that gaze carefully guarded. It hurt, even if any logical person could piece together why she was on the receiving end of that look. The moment Wynonna had realized that her little girl was on this side of the dream world and not the one that they had been in, things had ceased to matter as much to her there. It was fake, a lie. To her, that would include the sister that had never betrayed them, that had loved her family more than her own life. For Willa, after everything, that world was a hope she couldn’t live without, including the relationship she had with her sisters. “Nonna….”

Something in that hard expression cracked and Wynonna stepped forward, pulling Willa into the same hug she’d dragged Waverly into just moments before and Willa gladly returned it. “I can’t do it again,” Wynonna whispered and Willa pulled back a little.

“What?”

“Lose you all over again. I’ve done it too much.”

“I’m here to stay.”

“You better,” Wynonna managed.

Several shots echoed out in what had been a brief, quiet moment and Willa’s eyes darted to to the window, but that was wrong. Those shots had come from inside the house.

“Doc,” Wynonna said quickly. “He and Gus have the upstairs covered so they don’t come around the side.”

“You actually got Doc to use a rifle?” Waverly asked, looking more amused than anything by it.

Wynonna rolled her eyes. “Nope. Dolls tried to get him to use an automatic rifle. You should have seen the offended look he gave him. Hey, if he can hit them with his pistol, more power to him.”

Willa scanned the room, seeing Nicole move to speak with Dolls, looking at their collection of weapons, and she gave a brief wave to Jeremy who flashed her a grin in return. “Where-”

“Last I saw him he was upstairs.”

“Someone gave Robert a gun?” 

“I’ve just got better vision ‘n anybody else here at this time of night.”

Hazel eyes darted up towards the voice and she saw Robert making his way down the old wooden stairs. He looked better than the last night she’d seen him and her lips twitched upward. “Hey.”

“Find what you needed?”

“No, but if it was that or my sister and Nicole, I chose them.”

She saw the subtle shift in his eyes and she stepped to meet him as he made it to the bottom of the stairs. Somewhere behind her Wynonna and Waverly moved to speak with Dolls and Nicole about what the girls had seen as they had come in, giving Willa and Robert a private moment. He didn’t smile for her, nor did he pull away as she reached out, her fingers finding his in the hallway of the house she had two sets of childhood memories in. She felt those nimble fingers wrap around her own, weaving between them, and he took a step closer to her so that he could lean in, his forehead pressed against hers and she reached her free hand up to the side of his face, her thumb running across the white patch in his beard. They stood like that for a long moment, nothing said between them as they simply focused in on each other. 

The sound of gunshots and Doc yelling from above them broke the moment and both icy blue eyes and her own hazel ones snapped open. “I’m here when this is over, Robert. I’m not leaving you again. I’m here as long as you’ll have me.” 

“It’s always been your choice,” he murmured roughly.

“And this time it’s yours.”

“I’ve told you before that for me, that this is for life.” 

“Only if you still want to be. I know…. I know a lot’s happened, and I don’t…” 

His gaze softened and he pressed a kiss to her forehead. “That life, this life. Don’t matter to me. It’s you. It’s always gonna be you, Willa, long as you’ll have me.”

She nodded, finally accepting it.

“Listen, as nauseatingly cute as you two are, you mind getting in the fight?” Wynonna yelled from the front of the house.

Robert looked over towards her and Willa saw the glint in his eyes. They could finish this tonight, and if they did, if they were able to kill Clootie, the curse would finally be over. They would both be free.

 

* * *

  
  


He was toying with them. That was the only explanation. He had known Willa was trying to play him and had known that they were gearing up for what they hoped was the final blow. He had likely even known that they would waste valuable time looking for a single talisman when he had multiple buried all across Earp land. He knew that they couldn’t find them all.

Now Clootie had them essentially trapped in the house, the occasional firestorm causing everyone to duck for cover and Holliday and Gus McCready had taken one or two out - temporarily - from their perch in the attic bedroom. None of them had actually seen Bulshar yet, but Bobo knew he was close by. His presence sent chills up and down his spine, leaving him antsy and nervous, feeling the walls around him like they were closing in. He had something planned, and for all the chess playing Bobo had done of the years to put everything just in place, he wasn’t sure exactly what that something was here.

“Hey.”

He looked over to see Wynonna deep in a high-backed chair, her legs bent so that her heels dug into the cushion and Peacemaker rested on her knees. “He’s here, isn’t he?”

Bobo straighten a little. So the Heir could feel him too. “Yeah.”

“On the land?”

Blue eyes slipped closed and for just a moment he let the guards he had in place to push that presence out ease. He didn’t dare let them drop. That was too much of a risk, but he could loosen them and get a better idea just how close he was. 

The presence slammed into him hard enough to jolt him forward a little and his eyes popped back open, every guard back in place as the room tinged red. When the ringing in his head cleared he found Wynonna standing and Dolls had turned from his crouched place next to one of the windows. 

“Robert?”

He flinched at the hand on his back and Willa pulled back immediately, as if she could feel the heat from the burning brand all the way through his coat. He pushed a long breath through his nose and focused. “Close. Too close.”

All eyes turned towards the stairs as heavy footsteps clamoured down them, Hank yelling as he moved. “Get away from the windows!”

Almost in unison with the words Bobo caught a sharp, high pitched sound that he didn’t have time to react to as the windows shattered inward, glass flying around them, and the door blew all the way off its hinges. “Here we go,” Wynonna muttered, adjusting her grip on Peacemaker as Revenants swarmed the house. 

They flooded in, even if the lingering presence that Clootie cast out like a shadow stayed outside. Gunshots went off, tables flipped to be used to dive behind, and Bobo loosed a deep growl as he caught one of them that got too close by the shirt collar. He saw the brief flash of fear in the other Revenant’s eyes and it felt good to remind the little bastard just why he had gone unchallenged as their leader so long. Bobo hauled him around, throwing him hard enough that he slammed headlong into the unyielding bricks of the fireplace in the room next to him, and there was a sickening crunch as the Revenant crumpled to the floor.

“Bobo!” Dolls shouted and offered up a gun from his place.

The Revenant smirked at the gesture, but instead of accepting it he held one hand up, stopping a bullet that some idiot had thought would make it to him in mid air. The smirk grew as he caught his attacker’s eyes and flipped the bullet around, sending it straight back at him and he fell dead, even if only for a little while. “I do better without.”

Dolls blinked at him. “Right.”

A bullet cut close to his ear, making the Revenant flinch, but instead of hitting him it hit someone who had been aiming for him just outside of his line of vision. Blue eyes blinked and he turned, finding Willa grinning at him and she offered a wink. “What would you do without me?”

Bobo grinned toothily, but it faded as soon as it had appeared as he spotted a Revenant coming up behind her. “Willa!” He lunged forward to help her, but two and then a third grabbed him from behind, dragging him down to the floor. He hit hard, his vision swimming for just a moment, but when he opened his eyes again he saw the desperate looks on each face that surrounded him. One made the mistake of pulling a switchblade, which was instantly buried in his own neck as soon as the blade popped open, and Bobo swung it around to catch the second. The third landed a hard kick before trying to scurry away, but he had enough metal on his belt and boots for Bobo to take hold and drag him - kicking and squirming - back towards him. 

“ _ Robert _ !”

The sound of his name made it over the roar of the battle and the pounding of his own fight that he was in the middle of and through the rage he remembered  _ why _ he’d been so angry. “Willa.” He turned, finding several Revenants on her, and no matter how hard she struggled, they were pulling her out one of the large windows at the front of the house. He knew where they were taking her. If Clootie wanted her alive -  and that order could have only come down from him - nothing good could come of it.

Bobo slammed the Revenant he’d been facing down hard to make sure he wouldn’t follow him immediately and was on his feet, racing for the door. He tore out of it, nearly barreling over Nicole who had been trying to keep any other Revenants from getting in, and he heard someone shout after him, but it didn’t matter. All he could think of was getting to Willa before Clootie could. 

They had ahold of her, one on either arm and one Revenant trying to get ahold of her flailing feet as she fought them. Bobo could see blood on her, but if it was hers or theirs he couldn’t tell in the shadows of the night. The whole scene brought memories of that night when she’d been dragged out of her home just as she was now, his and Ward’s plan going awry when Wynonna had fired off Peacemaker and accidentally shot the Heir dead.

Clootie stood just at the fenceline, his strange gold eyes glowing and his teeth flashing white in the dark as he lifted a hand and Willa was suspended in the air, pulled from his henchmen, and she went stiff in the air as he pulled her to him. 

“Don’t touch her, asshole!” Wynonna yelled as she blew through the front door, Waverly and Doc on her heels. If any of the Revenants that had made it inside were back on their feet yet, they were waiting to see how the scenario played out. No one made a move towards the Heir as she focused on her sister and the Demon Clootie.

Clootie’s smile only grew as he pulled Willa in front of him, her back pressed against his chest and his fingers wrapped around her thin neck. “How good of a shot are you, Wynonna?” he called out, that smile of his enough to turn even Bobo’s stomach.

“Let her go, Clootie.”

“Familiar, Robert? I wonder if this Earp is willing to shoot through her own sister to get to me as easily as Wyatt took the shot through you.”

The world tinged red around him and Bobo snarled, crouching just a little, but he didn’t dare make a move forward. It would be too easy for Clootie to hurt her. He might not kill her at that moment, not when she was more useful to him as a human shield, but he could and would hurt her. “She ain’t any use to you. Not anymore. She ain’t the Heir and she ain’t on your side. You want someone to go at, you come at me. I’m the only one left from the beginning. Wyatt took the shot, but I’m the one that told him to. I’m the one that put you deep in the ground and bled to keep you there.” Glowing red eyes held that golden gaze and his voice dipped low into a rage-filled growl. “Come at  _ me _ .”

A rough chuckle left the demon. “Always trying to put yourself between me and the Earps. You have no one to blame but yourself, Robert. You promised me an Earp bride to replace the three I lost. What I got-” golden eyes flickered over to look at Waverly- “was a child without an ounce of Earp blood in her, and you took even that from me. I will have my bride and I will have this town and more. ”

“I don’t have the shot,” Wynonna whispered and he could feel the anxiety building around as Clootie backed away.

Bobo took a step forward and Willa gave a muffled sound of pain as Clootie tightened his hold. “Not now, but I do look forward to our next meeting, Robert. You’re right. You are the last one left, and I haven’t forgotten how this all began. By the end of this, I’ll have you too, one way or the other.”

Every muscle was tensed as he watched the creature that had brought so much pain and misery into his life slip back and away into the night with the one person he loved the most, the rest of his followers slinking behind him. Bobo wanted to leap forward. He wanted to tear Clootie limb from limb until there was nothing left to come back. He wanted to make him feel every inch of pain that he’d felt from the moment the bullet passed through him one hundred and thirty years before till right then, but he didn’t dare risk her life. Not hers. 

“Son of a bitch,” Wynonna cursed and as he turned he saw her shaking, anger deep in those blue eyes, and Waverly reached out.

“We’ll get her back.”

“Yeah we will. She swore to me she was here to stay. I’m holding her to it. We’re not losing her again.”

Bobo pulled in a trembling breath, running his hand along the strip of white-blond hair on his head, smoothing it down.

“You know where he’s takin’ her.”

It was Hank. Of course it was Hank. He loosed the breath and met the gunslinger’s gaze. “I do. He’s taking her to where it all started.”

 

 


	15. Part Fifteen

For him, it hadn't begun in the little church on the edge of town, it had only ended there.

He could still remember the first time he and Wyatt had ridden into Purgatory together. Wyatt had received a letter from the padre in town that he had been certain was out of his depths. The Padre had written of the atrocities that Sheriff Clootie had brought down on their town and the terror that he'd struck in the people there. Robert had read the letters himself, and Wyatt had been certain that some of it had been exaggerated. Two wives that feasted on the flesh of men and one a witch, with the sheriff himself a devil. He hadn't mocked it, per se. He certainly believed it to be a dangerous situation, but until they crossed that town line he hadn't believed the padre in full.

Bobo remembered that day that they'd ridden in. The sun had been bright and the air crisp, the ground still heavy with melted snow that kept the dust at the horses' hooves. Doc Holliday had turned Wyatt's invitation to join them down and the gunslinger had assured him that the two of them would be more than enough to handle this situation. It was just another town for him, another request amongst so many that he received. It was all relatively new for Robert Svane who had always felt like he'd lived his life falling just short of what he could achieve. He'd ridden with Wyatt before this, but he still couldn't quite find the answer to the question as to what a legend like Wyatt Earp saw in a man like him or crush that lingering inclination that he needed to earn his keep.

Wyatt had been the friend that he hadn't known that he wanted, but once he'd had, that loyalty taken root quickly and deeply. Robert had never been quick with a gun, though Wyatt had worked with him. His right hand had always been clumsier than his left, but the deputy marshal had been helping him steady his aim as he rode with him. They'd had many a late night up to all hours, talking and musing about life and everything that came with it. While others drank and laughed, they had discussed the complexities of the universe. The good and the bad that men did and what came with it. Wyatt wasn't sure, after everything he'd seen, that he believed in heaven and hell, but Robert did. He'd never shared the visions of his angel that he'd had over the course of his life, but he spoke of his faith, and while Wyatt might not share it at its depth, he respected it. He respected the insights that Robert brought and the entirely different point of view that he often shared. He relied on it, Wyatt had told him the night before they'd reached Purgatory. He wouldn't know what to do without Robert.

They had gone straight to a little saloon in town. It wasn't the main watering hole, but one back and off the beaten path. The Padre - Juan Carlos - didn't want to draw attention, he had explained when they had arrived, though the man had already been there a while as far as either Robert or Wyatt had been able to tell. He was nervous, scared, and he'd spoken much as he had in his letters to Wyatt, those haunted blue eyes of his darting towards the windows and the door like he expected the mere mention of the sheriff's name to summon him.

It hadn't. Clootie hadn't come to them first. No, it had been his two sons that had sought out Wyatt Earp and his companion. They had sent chills down Robert's spine with their strange eyes and their deep, growling voices, and for the first time in his life he thought he had known what it must be like to look into the eyes of demons. They made a show of killing a man right in front of Wyatt, like he wouldn't do anything to stop it, and when the bullet had struck the first one true the second had loosed such a screech that Robert had found dark spots dancing across his vision as he'd tried to cover his ears against it. He never had a chance to get to his gun, little good it would have done him, and Wyatt had silenced the brother as well. As the few other patrons of that particular saloon had peeked out from where they'd hidden, Wyatt, Robert, and the padre had stood staring at the two dead demons and the weight of what was coming for them felt more real than they could have ever imagined.

Wyatt had believed then and he'd set his determination against Clootie, his focus absolute. They brought Clootie out, but every time they clashed there had been something to stop it from resolving. Clootie had had no qualms in using innocent bystanders to allow for his own escape, so when Robert had been the one that he'd taken, the one that he'd intended to use to get away for good, he'd told Wyatt to take the shot. It had been the only way he'd seen to make it work. Apparently Wyatt had felt the same way. He'd never had the chance to ask him.

It had been many years since he'd let himself dwell on everything that had happened. Most days he did his best to push it aside. Focusing on the past did nothing for him in the present until that day. Now, as the images washed over him, it was like pulling the wound open again and he knew it had never truly healed.

"So you think Bulshar went back to the place where Wyatt killed his sons?" Wynonna asked. "He doesn't exactly strike me as the fatherly type to care."

"Just possessive," Bobo answered, running his hand along his hair in a nervous fashion. "He sent them to handle Wyatt and lost 'em for it. It was what brought him in to kill him himself and got him dead instead."

"You too," Wynonna murmured, her gaze sweeping the battle torn land that her home rested on. The house itself had taken heavy fire, Clootie doing a fair amount of damage directly to it. After a moment, her gaze turned dark. "Let's go remind the bastard what happens when you screw with the Earps and get Willa back."

Her gaze swiveled around and caught his, holding it for a long moment and he nodded firmly.

* * *

Her life hadn't been a simple one, nor had it been a particularly pleasant one. Not in this reality, at least. Everything Willa had done since she had returned had been in a desperate effort to regain something of that happier life she had lived in the dream world. She hadn't been fool enough to think Clootie himself would help her, but if they beat him back, if they won, Robert and she would both be free of the curse and they could get their family back.

That freedom had made the risk worth it. Or she thought it had. It didn't do a bit of good if they didn't both make it out alive.

Willa hit the wall hard, and she clawed at the hand around her thin throat, Clootie now blocking her line of sight to the dead proprietor of the store he'd taken for his own means. Her nail caught the ring on one of his fingers and she felt a jolt from it. It was subtle, but something told her it was powerful.

Bulshar Clootie tightened his grip on her and she raised her gaze to meet his defiantly. "You Earps," he hissed, reaching with his free hand to toy with a lock of her dark blonde hair. "You're more stubborn than I ever gave you credit for. Determined. Even resilient." He leaned closer with each word until the last was spoken directly in her ear. "Robert promised me a gift."

"Robert lied to you," she choked out. A strained laugh escaped her and she could tell that the smirk was getting to him. "You keep underestimating the Earps…. and you keep underestimating Robert. We're going to kill you."

His mood shifted immediately, but Willa didn't dare look away. "Is that what you think? Your sister and your lover come in here and do away with the demon, freeing you all?" He grinned, close enough to her that she could feel his hot breath on her face and his hand tight enough that she was starting to have trouble breathing. "You threw away your chance to free him by betraying me."

"You wouldn't have… let him go," Willa managed.

"Maybe not, but I could have made it bearable. He's so desperate to avoid hell, but what they never consider is that I can make this world just the same."

"Don't do us any favours," the former Heir bit out and she pulled one leg up, landing her knee hard into him. The demon stumbled enough to loosen his hold and she kicked again, pushing him back further. "You don't listen very well, do you? I did say that _we_ were going to kill you." She lunged forward at him, but didn't land another blow as he flicked his wrist and Willa found herself being thrown onto her back, flat on the floor with what little breath she'd sucked into her lungs driven from them.

Clootie moved to step over her, tilting his head a little as he looked down. She managed to get an inch or two off the floor when he pushed her back down. "Stubborn."

"Did you think this would be easy?" she growled.

"Did you?"

A sound caught Willa's attention and she felt her chest seize. Clootie smirked a little. "Do you hear her? I told you you could have her. You could have had them both. Willa, my dear, you could have had it all if you had just-" he leaned down and the echoing laughter drew closer- "obeyed."

She could feel him working at her mind, but as she let her eyes slip closed she could see Grace as clear as if she were standing there.

"You can't win this," Bulshar's voice echoed in her mind. "There's only the fight, no victory. Only the endless battle. That is the curse, Willa, and there's no breaking it."

Willa reached for Grace, fear gripping her, but she stopped. As real as their daughter had been in the dream world, this little girl was not. She looked like her and her small cries even sounded like her, but there were little tells in the eyes that Clootie couldn't fake. He didn't know how.

The illusion shattered around her and Willa drew in a steadying breath, looking straight up to meet his eerie gaze. "Promises in the dark don't usually stand up in the light."

"Poetic," he chuckled.

"They're coming for you."

His lips stretched in a snarling smile. "I'm counting on that, Ms Earp."

* * *

"I don't like you kids going in at that guy alone."

Wynonna shot Nedley a look. "You got a SWAT team hidden under that hat of yours?"

Her father's old friend huffed a chuckle. "I just mean that we thought those Widows were bad news, and this is the man that made them."

"Don't let 'im fool you. He ain't a man. Don't think he ever was," Bobo said as he joined them next to the squad car. Any sign that he'd been shaken by Willa's abduction and the show that Bulshar had put on had been shoved deep under his mask of focus. Those clear blue eyes of his were sharp and he looked coiled and ready for a fight beneath his obnoxious fur coat. Good. In Wynonna's experience, that was Bobo at his best. All snark and dangerous intent.

She watched Nedley look the Revenant up and down suspiciously. "And you think you've got this handled, do you?"

"No," Bobo drawled, his gaze sliding past the sheriff and towards the Heir. "I think she does."

Wynonna blinked, a little startled by the show of faith that he'd been so determined that he didn't have left in him, but she covered it as quickly as she could so that she didn't make a show, only acknowledging his statement with a small nod.

"Okay, we've got a starting point," Waverly announced as she bounded over, Doc sauntering behind her and Nicole on her heels with a rolled up map in her hand. She laid it out on the hood of the squad car and Wynonna saw a layout of the town, her younger sister pointing as she spoke. "So they're held up here. This used to be the saloon that Wyatt killed Clootie's sons at."

"Outside, but yeah," Bobo answered.

"I don't even know what that thing is anymore," Wynonna grumbled.

"A fabric store," Waverly said.

"Seriously? Our showdown with Bulshar is about to happen at a fabric store?." Bobo shot her an exasperated look and Wynonna shrugged. "Okay then."

"Need your focus on, Earp," Dolls said as he rounded the car, handing out comm earpieces. He got to Doc and Bobo and both men looked at him funny. Dolls didn't look amused. "We're going on in a rescue mission halfway blind and a lot outnumbered. We need to be able to communicate with each other."

"So…. what? It's like a mini telephone?" Doc asked cautiously.

"Basically, but it connects everybody so we can hear each other," Waverly said, fitting her own in her ear and moving to help Doc.

Wynonna stepped in instead and held out her hand, desperately trying to ignore the fact that everyone took a step back as if they had all been waiting for her to face what she had been actively trying to ignore.

Doc handed over the earpiece, his callous fingers brushing her palm, and she knew that look in those expressive eyes of his. The more he felt, the less he said, and his silence in that moment was a tell he never would have wanted to admit to. One that she couldn't ignore anymore.

She pulled in a steadying breath and shifted the piece to her fingers, reaching up with her free hand to tuck his dark hair behind his ear so she could work it into place. Words battered around her head, none of them making it to her lips, and she wasn't quite sure if they weren't good enough or just… too much. That look he was giving her left her feeling vulnerable, and that was the last thing she needed going in.

He reached up, his touch light and she realized she hadn't pulled her hand away even though she had gotten the earpiece fitted in. "We'll get Willa back," he promised, his voice low and a little rough. "And then we'll kill Clootie an' get Alice back."

Wynonna swallowed hard, but when the words still wouldn't come she leaned in, her lips pressed against his in a language she knew he'd understand. Or she hoped he would.

He kissed her back and she knew he did. As they parted she met his eyes. "When we have her back..."

"I'm gonna hold you to that," Doc chuckled.

"You better." She kissed him again, short and sweet, before turning her attention back to the others. They were waiting. Willa was waiting. And at the end of this, Alice was waiting for both of her parents to come get her.

"You ready?" Waverly asked.

"Yeah. Let's end the bastard."

* * *

It was a wonder that Wynonna bothered to listen to the deputy marshal when he set anything up. His procedures - even the ones he thought he was breaking - made him predictable, and while Clootie wouldn't know what to look for, he would have people in his ranks that did. He'd been playing them up to this point. There was no reason to think this wasn't just another string for the cat to chase.

Wynonna trusted his judgement and Bobo had chosen to trust hers. They'd make it through this together or they would all die together. This was it, win or lose. This was the final play.

Bobo Del Rey slipped around the back of the shop, the door's lock clicking open with a tug from his powers. The place looked deserted, but it was just another trick. He could feel Bulshar inside, and the presence taunted him, pulled at him. The closer he got the deeper he felt it. It was like a thousand pins in his brain, working and trying to find a weakness to break through. He had done it once, and the result had terrified Bobo. He had never felt so out of control, so completely and utterly vulnerable. In its own way, in those brief lucid moments, he had known that it was just as bad - no, worse - than hell's flames eating and tearing at him. He wouldn't - _couldn't_ \- allow him in again.

The Revenant pushed back hard, even if doing so broadcasted his own location. Fine. Let it. What were they going to do? Kill him? At least it might buy time for the Earps to rescue Willa.

A sound to his left drew his attention and he turned, reaching a hand out to pull at the metal shelving that showed to have a person behind it.

Human. Interesting. He must have been one of Bulshar's idiot followers. The Revenants had kept familiars - humans hoping to gain something from the demonic creatures, typically - around them over the years, but they held nothing to the loyal followers of the ancient demon. Clootie didn't need mind control for them. They willingly handed full control over. It was the only thing that could drive a normal human to choose to go up against a Revenant.

Bobo shot him a bored look as the Human leveled a gun at him, hand trembling ever so slightly. "Our master has been expecting you."

"Sure," the Revenant snorted and the gun went flying from the Human's hands. Gunshots went off from the front of the store and Bobo took hold of his would-be attacker, throwing him like a rag doll against the wall. He didn't have time for this. He could hear others coming towards him from the front, the sound of a battle already waging there. Willa would be held with Clootie though. He knew where he needed to go.

He didn't meet any opposition that he couldn't handle, even if one Revenant had managed to break a hanging rack to a sharp edge to use as a weapon, leaving a gash in his leg before he had pulled it away. Bobo had left him with the makeshift weapon through his chest before following the call he could hear so clearly in his mind.

There was a small hallway that separated the back of the store from the shopfront, and a Revenant stood snarling and guarding the door, but as Bobo strode forward, feeling the brand burning against his back and his own vision tinted red. If there was a struggle for the upper hand, there was no question who would win. He bent under Bobo's glare and the door swung open at his command.

Clootie sat behind the desk in the office, Willa gagged and sitting on his lap, the bony fingers of one hand wrapped around her thin arm and Bobo could see the bruises beginning to form even if the defiant look hadn't been driven from her eyes. Bruised but not broken. His Willa.

The demon's lips twitches into something like a smile. "You've always been a stubborn one, Robert, but everyone has their pressure point." Willa made a small, pained sound and Clootie's smirk grew. He leaned in, burying his nose in her hair. "It's just a matter of finding it."

A deep growl escaped Bobo and that only seemed to entertain Clootie more, and the Revenant could feeling him working against his mental protections. He pushed harder and grinned as something cracked dangerously.

Willa made a sound against the gag and blue eyes met hazel, grounding him.

Clootie was having none of that, though. Bobo saw him motion over his shoulder, but he didn't dare take his eyes off of him. The demon stood, dragging Willa with him, and his golden gaze was focused on him. "You can fight it, but you won't win. Not forever."

He dropped Willa, but Bobo barely had the time to watch her stumble as Bulshar Clootie's power slammed into him. He felt it work through every inch of his body, muscles obeying where he had shut down the mental intrusion. A struggling cough was the only sound that he could manage as Clootie stepped in front of where he now stood as if pinned to the wall, and Bobo lost sight of Willa.

Clootie leaned in, and he reached a hand up so that his fingers curled around to the back of his neck. "You see, the others may think that you are here for Willa, even she might believe it, but you and I know the truth, Robert. You can't fight forever, and I have you."

Those gold eyes flashed and Bobo felt the crack in his defenses widen, splitting, and Bulshar was breaking in. He couldn't look away, couldn't push him back out. He felt like the dam had broken and the waters flooding in might drown him. He stood there, the demon's touch lingering, and he felt himself slipping just as he had in that cave so many months before.

"You strode in here, all power and defiance, but do you really think that power is your own? _I_ gave that to you. _I_ made you what you are. I-"

And then a loud crash filled his ears, interrupting the monologue, and Clootie pitched hard to one side. The pull that Bobo had been so unable to fight snapped like a rubber band and he blinked, finding Willa staring back at him with a newly broken chair in her hands. He sank back against the wall and stared at her. He could tell that her lips were moving, but he couldn't make out the words. He hadn't quite surfaced, and the hold threatened to drag him back down again.

"Robert!" Her voice finally broke through and he swallowed, starting to look over towards Clootie where the demon was groaning, but Willa took his chin between her fingers, stealing his attention. "No, not at him. Look at me. I'm not losing you again," she said firmly. She tipped up, the brief kiss flooding him with warmth, and she slipped her hand into his to tug him towards the door and he the didn't look back as Clootie pulled himself to his knees, but he could feel the brand burning deeply in his back, the call echoing in the back of his mind, and he focused on the feel of his hand in hers.

* * *

Wynonna slammed back against a set of mannequins, ducking down to avoid the blow that followed after, that one aimed at her head. She kicked out and slammed her boot into the Revenant's shin, sending him howling in pain and stumbling back to give her room to aim and shoot, the howls turning even more frantic as he was sucked back down to hell.

They weren't all Revenants. She'd known that in theory, but aiming close in and seeing someone fall with a vacant look in their open eyes was somehow even harder than watching a Revenant take a trip back down south. These people were brainwashed - most of them were, she hoped - but they were also trained. Almost militant. These weren't the townsfolk that she'd told Doc and Dolls to keep standing a couple of years before when Bobo had poisoned literally poisoned them all against her. No, these people were calculated and cruel. They couldn't give on it. This was a fight for their lives.

The fight was hard enough as it was. She let her gaze sweep the room, finding Doc reloading, Dolls covering him as he did. Waverly had her shotgun at her shoulder, firing to open up a pathway for Nicole. There was still no sign of Bobo, and she hoped that it hadn't been a mistake sending him around back alone.

A loud crash drew her attention and Wynonna found herself smirking a little. Speak of the devil. Or the Revenant. And he had Willa.

Or maybe Willa had him.

There was something strange in those blue eyes of his. Wynonna couldn't look closely enough to tell for sure, but there was something she didn't like, and as Willa ran towards her, her hand firmly gripping Bobo's, the younger Earp saw her waving them out. "We have to go!"

"We have to finish this," Wynonna snapped.

"Not on his terms," Willa countered, motioning around them with her free hand. " _Look_ at this. You listened in to enough of what Daddy said to know how to pick your battles. He knew you were coming."

"If we run now, we're just going to keep running. This needs to _end_!"

"Willa's right," Waverly shouted. "We're too cramped in here and they have the advantage."

"He does," Bobo said lowly, and Wynonna was hit again by that look in his eyes. It was distant, haunted, not unlike when he'd first brought Waverly back home to them after he'd broken free of Bulshar's control.

"Bobo," she said quietly, carefully, and his eyes snapped all the way open, suddenly sharp and bright, and he turned. Wynonna followed his gaze back to see smoke curling out from the back end of the shop and flames curled out like they were paving the way for Bulshar. If they didn't make their way into the street they'd be burned alive inside the shop. "Out. Everyone out."

"Wynonna-" Dolls started to argue, but stopped as soon as he saw what she had.

Revenants and humans alike tried to block their exit, and Peacemaker's markings never did fade as she helped to clear their path. They made it out, fresh air finally filling her lungs, and Wynonna turned to see flames already shattering windows and burning fast and hot. Doc pulled her along, not letting her get caught by the spectacle, down to the squad car.

"How the hell are we supposed to fight that?" Jeremy asked shakily as they made their way towards him and Nedley.

"The ring. He wears a ring," Willa said. "It felt…."

Waverly pushed a frustrated breath out. "Yeah, but how do we get it off his finger?"

"Rip it off."

Wynonna looked over at the rough growl and Bobo was looking directly at her. "You think you can?"

"If I get it, you put him down. You end this."

She nodded slowly. "Okay. I'm going to need help."

"Anything you need," Doc said.

"From all of us," Waverly agreed.

"Hey." Wynonna looked at their older sister and Willa's lips were quirked up in a dangerous smile. "We're all here for you, Nonna, and nothing outnumbers three Earps."

Wynonna pushed aside the wave of emotions and nodded.

Bobo huffed as he straightened a little and started towards where Clootie looked to be moving through the flames like they were nothing. She knew he was struggling against it, fighting, but he also knew as well as she did that this had to end now or it never would. "Bobo?" He paused, turning so that he could see her out of the corner of his eye and anything she could say felt like it'd fall short. She tried for a smile. "I'll try not to shoot you, huh?" she ried for a joke, but even as it left her lips she knew it wasn't funny.

"You make sure he's dead, you hear me, Earp? No matter what."

She nodded numbly, and part of her wondered when losing Bobo Del Rey had become such a terrible thought.

* * *

 

Notes: So I was worried about this chapter being short... It's 4.7K long. Go figure.

And here we go! Final battle against Clootie. Sorry it took me so long to get this chapter up!


	16. Part Sixteen

The flames poured out of the building that had been so many things since he'd first laid eyes on it. It burned fast and hot, devouring anything and anyone in its path, and it didn't look like anyone was getting out of that alive.

Except for Clootie. Flames weren't going to kill him, especially not those that he created. No, the only thing that would be able to take him down was the gun that he'd wrapped into this curse. Wynonna Earp was the only one to kill him, and if Bobo was lucky he'd just play bait, not a shield this time.

Bobo stood in the street across from the burning building and watched as the demon moved from the flames like they didn't exist at all. Nothing on him was singed and he was focused in on him, those golden eyes burning straight through him.

"Do you think you can end this, Robert?" Clootie called out, his voice echoing in an eerie way, and it was like they'd been left alone to face each other in a pocket in which time didn't matter. Instead of following Wyatt in, he was following Wynonna. Instead of giving his life up for Wyatt, he was….

No.

He pushed a breath out through his nose, an amused sound riding out on it. "You and I both know that's not how it works."

"It does not. Curses are funny things." Clootie chuckled, seemingly entertained by his own repeat. He moved closer and Bobo stood his ground. "I'm sure you've seen your fair share of magical oddities over the years. You became… acquainted with my wife Constance. Surely you know that harming the one that bestowed your powers upon you is dangerous to your own health."

"Funny thing," Bobo snarled lowly, "saying that to the man that took a bullet to put you in the ground the first time. I've been plenty hurt already."

"And now you have a choice again. She will kill you to get to me."

"You know what I did to you. You know what I did to keep you down. I know the only way I stay alive with you still topside is on my knees, and I ain't gonna live that way. Death would be better."

"And deprive Willa of that little girl? What was her name? Grace? You do see the irony in that, yes?"

Anger flooded through him and Bobo loosed a deep, dangerous growl. "You don't have the right to speak my daughter's name."

"Don't I? If not for me, you'd never have known she could even exist."

"And you need to die if we're ever gonna get her back." Bobo reached out, pulling deep for his powers and he could feel the brand on his back burn. It hurt, worse than he had ever felt before, but he didn't let up as the piece of metal wrapped around the demon's finger shifted and moved, pulled towards him at his command. He could do this. It didn't matter where his powers originated from. It didn't matter the price he had to pay. Ending Clootie was all that mattered.

Clootie's golden eyes narrowed. "Exactly what do you hope to accomplish, Robert?" he growled out, his voice low and dangerous.

He didn't answer. He needed all of his focus in on that ring and he pulled and pulled and pulled. Finally Clootie's grip loosened. It had to. He didn't have a choice. As Bobo's eyes opened - funny, he hadn't realized that they closed - he found Clootie directly in front of him and he let loose a snarling grin. "You shouldn't have made me so powerful."

Terror flashed through the demon's eyes as his ring worked loose of his finger, flying to Bobo's hand on command. He closed his fingers around it, feeling it fight against him the same as Constance's seal had, but he tightened his grip. The metal gave beneath his grip, crushing and breaking, and the power that it held surged outward, burning the palm of his hand.

"I don't need the ring to kill you, Robert," Clootie snarled.

"You're focused on the wrong person. It ain't me you need to worry about."

Clootie's eyes flashed dangerously, but he spun as Bobo motioned, and as he moved the Revenant could see Willa and Waverly on his other side.

"Hey asshole," Willa growled out. "This is Earp territory."

"And you're not welcome here," Waverly chimed in.

Both shots went off and one hit, the other deflected. Clootie stumbled, but it wasn't a blow by Peacemaker, even if it looked like it hurt.

He howled, angry and in pain, and Bobo felt the presence behind him as Clootie stumbled and turned his glare on him.

"Bobo!" Wynonna shouted the warning and he dodged, swaying the side even as the bullet fired from the Colt .45. He felt the bullet slide past him, hot and dangerous, but it missed him. He stumbled a couple of steps, but caught his balance in time to see Clootie's head whip back. The bullet struck between the eyes and everything froze for half a moment. Everything but Clootie. He fell back, eyes rolling, and he hit the pavement.

Power swept outward from him and slammed hard enough into Bobo to steal his breath. He staggered, his chest tightening dangerously and his vision blurred as he turned to try to focus on the now-screaming demon. The street below Bulshar Clootie opened up, hell's flames dragging him down to the only place that he belonged, closing behind him and sealing him better than they ever could.

A strange silence followed, the screams now silenced, and Bobo blinked hard, finding that he couldn't bring his vision into focus.

"He's gone," Wynonna breathed, an almost disbelieving laugh escaping on that breath. Holliday scooped her up off her feet and she wrapped her arms around his neck, her laughter turning a little more real as he spun her. "He's gone."

"And we can bring her home," Hank promised her, his own grin stretching out across his face before he put her down and kissed her. Wynonna laughed against him.

"It is broken, right?"

Bobo turned to where Willa had spoken and found the woman he loved standing next to him now. She looked so hopeful, but unsure. Everything in their lives had prepared them for disappointment in the end. As much as they had wanted it, as willing as they'd been to fight for it, he wasn't sure either of them knew what to do with a real win.

But they had it. He could feel it in every inch of his of himself. He was human again. After fighting for nearly a century, he was still standing and they'd won.

"Yeah. It's broken," Bobo breathed and he saw her smile, slow at first, but then it split wide as she launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and holding on tight and burying her nose in the crook of his neck as he lifted her off the ground.

His breath caught as he did and he dropped her back down without warning, grimacing. Willa shot him a worried look as he reached a hand up to the source of pain and found slick, red blood soaking through his shirt under his coat. Willa's hand came up to meet it, his name riding out on a breath.

"What's going on?"

"He's been shot," Willa answered and Bobo pushed her prying fingers back.

"Yeah. Hundred and thirty years ago."

Her brows drew together in question and he huffed a chuckle, feeling himself sway a little. He was losing blood fast.

"What do you mean?" she asked softly when he didn't offer an explanation, and he felt her reach out to steady him. He leaned against her to keep from falling over.

He opened his mouth to answer, but all that escaped was a pained sound as the ground under his feet shifted. Willa yelped in his ear as his knees gave, but he felt someone catch him from behind. "Easy, Robert. I gotcha," Hank said in his ear, and he could feel him slowing the descent down. They were talking now. Who, exactly, he wasn't sure.

The voices blurred together and he saw Willa lean over him - when had Hank gotten him all the way to the ground? - that same worry in her eyes that he remembered from the dream world when she'd come barging into the ER found him there. He reached up with his right hand, wincing at the blood still caked on his fingers, but she took it and kissed his knuckles. "Stay with me?" she whispered, her voice just a little desperate.

"Yeah." The promise escaped on a breath even as he felt himself slip towards unconsciousness.

* * *

Waves was talking. Wynonna knew that she was. If she strained hard enough she could focus on what she was saying for a handful of seconds before drifting off again. She'd been researching and adding it to what she already knew about the Earp Curse and other curses documented to be like it, trying to find an explanation to why the curse breaking had somehow caused the wound that had killed Bobo to reappear while none of the other Revenants left seemed to be dropping around them.

"Maybe because he crushed Bulshar's ring?" Nicole offered sleepily from her seat next to Waverly, holding one of the books that had nowhere else to go in the line of seats in the hospital waiting room.

"Maybe," Waverly mused. "Oh! I saw something in here!" She dove for another book.

Wynonna shook her head, uncurling herself from the stiff-backed chair and Doc startled awake as she moved. "She here?"

"Not yet. I just need some coffee."

"Care for some company?"

Her immediate inclination was to tell him no, but she swallowed the word whole as soon as her gaze met those big, deep eyes staring up at her from where he was still slouched down where he'd been dozing. He was waiting, same as her. He was worried, same as her. She'd promised they would talk when it was all over, hadn't she?

"Yeah," she huffed and he was up on his feet almost instantly, following her around the corner and towards the coffee machines.

"You heard from Gus yet?" he asked, leaning against the wall next to the machines as she started fiddling with the controls on them.

"No, she's driving."

"Left out before we were done?"

"She said she knew we'd want her back as soon as possible and started out as soon as I called."

"Smart woman."

"Yeah." She slammed the heel of her hand into the uncooperative machine and Doc reached out, his touch gentle as he raised her hand up to his lips, pressed a kiss to the back of it, and she realized he was inching her over as he did to take over so she wouldn't break the damn thing. "Smooth."

"So I hear," he chuckled and she watched him coerce the machine into a functioning state. "It's not that different than the one Robert and Willa had in… well, in the other world, I suppose. There was a trick to that one too, it was so old."

"She got it from Daddy when he died," Wynonna said softly, the fake-memory swirling around in her mind. It didn't feel so fake.

Doc turned those big blue eyes on her and she couldn't help but feel like he could see right through every defence that she had. It was a constant state when he focused in on her, and she both hated it and found, if she let it, that it made her feel…. almost safe.

She leaned in without warning, the motion so quick that she hadn't had time to give herself permission, but he must have seen it coming. Doc leaned back, avoiding it, and she felt the same cold pang of regret flood through her that always came with the motion.

"We need to talk," he said softly and Wynonna felt her shoulders slump.

"Yeah."

Silence filled the small space between them and Wynonna knew he was waiting for her to speak first. He'd said his piece. She knew how he felt. He was all in, both here and there, and after everything he wanted to know where they stood. He deserved to know.

"It wasn't just you," she said, her voice small. "It'd be easier to figure out if it was, but it…. I loved our life there. I loved everything about it."

"Even Plucky?"

"Okay, not Plucky. I hated that dog." Doc chuckled at her and she shot him a glare. "He ate my shoes. And my coat. He even ate my car keys once."

"I remember."

She smirked at him, swatting him on the arm as the coffee gurgled to a finish. She turned and took the cup, taking a tentative sip and making a face. "Is this the coffee they drank over at Willa and Robert's, because I seem to remember him being kind of a coffee snob and this stuff tastes like shit."

Doc barked a laugh. "He had that thing… that grinder for the coffee grounds. Hell, I miss all that."

She grinned at him. "We can have something like it again."

"Think so?"

The question had weight and more than a little bit of hope attached to it, and Wynonna was surprised when the answer came easily to her lips. "Yeah, I think we can. I mean, we've fought like hell for everything else. Why not that life? Or something like it?"

"I do think we've earned somethin' like it," Doc agreed, leaning in, one hand against the side of her face as he kissed her. She reached out, clumsily trying to set the paper coffee cup on the counter next to the machines and her fingers latched onto the front of his shirt as she pulled him deeper into it. For once, she wasn't afraid of taking it further.

They broke when someone cleared their throat and Wynonna turned to see her younger sister grinning. "So, Bobo's out of surgery-"

"How is he?" Doc asked and no matter what they'd lived in the dream world, Wynonna was still going to have to get used to this friendship the boys seemed to have decided to hold onto in this one. No matter what they'd been there, it was weird as hell to see it here.

Waverly loosed a long breath. "The bullet did some damage to his lung - some sort of bruising - tore through a lot of muscle, and he lost a lot of blood. The doctor said it'll be a while before he wakes up, but….. That'll give you guys time with Alice."

Wynonna blinked, letting the meaning of the words sink in. "Gus is here?"

"Yeah, just out around in the waiting room."

Wynonna tore past her and rounded the corner, seeing Willa holding a giggling little girl in her arms, making faces at her. As her sister's gaze drifted past the girl her smile turned a little less silly, and Wynonna saw the strain in it as she continued to bounce the infant. Or was she even that? It'd been almost a year since she was born and she'd gotten so big that it was hard to recognize her.

"Look at that. Who's that?" Willa asked in a sing-song voice and Alice giggled for her as she bounced her, kissing her forehead. "Is that Mama? You wanna go see Mama? Mama wants to see you. Just look at that."

Wynonna's feet were carrying her over and she held her hands out. Willa bounced her once more and the shift was seamless, something they'd done a hundred times times in another world, but right then, Wynonna was certain that that very moment was all that mattered. Alice looked at her, those big blue eyes curious and open, and she lifted a small hand up to latch onto her loose hair and tug, smiling. Wynonna felt her breath catch as she leaned forward, holding onto the little girl like she might never let her go, tears squeezing out from the corners of her eyes as she pressed a kiss to the side of her head.

"Well look at you," Doc said from her side. "Pretty as a peach."

Wynonna finally pulled back to give him a chance to kiss their daughter, but he never tried to take her from Wynonna's arms. Instead he ran a finger along the little girl's chubby cheek and leaned in, his mustache tickling her until she squeaked and giggled at the kisses there. "I've missed you, Darlin'. Too much, but your mama an' I ain't ever gonna let you go again, you hear?"

Waverly moved passed her, touching Wynonna's back briefly as she did and smiling at Alice as she moved to go retake her seat with Nicole. Wynonna saw Willa motion before starting for the door back to the recovery room, and they were left with her there, two parents and a child that they had missed too much, and for that moment Wynonna felt an unfamiliar wave of peace wash over her. It really was over.

* * *

Everything hurt. That was the first thought that broke through the fog. It hurt and he couldn't see anything around him. It felt like someone had pulled the covers up over his face, making it impossible to see and hard to breathe. Every breath in sparked a new twinge of pain in his chest, he shifted a little, almost like he might be able to move away from it, but that didn't do anything but sharpen the pain, causing his fingers to twitch against what felt like bed sheets beneath them.

He'd been shot. Well, he'd been shot over a century before and as the curse had shattered it had left him with the wound that had tied him to it. The one that had killed him. It was the price he had paid for fighting it, for working against it. For using the powers Clootie's curse had given him to make him vulnerable and help to end him.

But he wasn't dead. At least he didn't think so. His eyes were just closed. A soft groan escaped him as he struggled to open them, his eyelids fluttering several times, too heavy to obey the first couple of attempts.

"Hey, take it easy."

The voice startled him and he looked over, squinting to bring the blurred figure into focus a little more. As she drew closer he was surprised to see Wynonna Earp at his bedside.

She cracked a tired smile. "Hey, dummy. How're you feeling?"

He opened his mouth to respond, but the only thing he managed was a hoarse cough and she leaned out of his line of vision, returning with a cup with a straw in it. "You had a tube down your throat," she said, motioning as she spoke. "Looked like it sucked. Willa's been pacing a hole in the floor since you went into surgery."

The water burned his raw throat a little in its way down, but a couple of swallows did the trick. "Where?" he managed, hoping that it was enough to get the question across.

"Running an errand you'll thank her for," Wynonna said, smirking at his confused expression.

"Why…" He winced, clearing his throat determinedly. "Why are you here?"

The Heir - former Heir? - blinked at him. "Thanks a lot, asshole. I thought it might mean something to you to actually have an Earp here when you woke up this time."

The meaning behind the words seeped in slowly and he shifted uncomfortably. Wyatt had left him to die alone, but she'd brought him out of it as whole as she could manage. Alive and…. not alone. He wasn't alone. He hadn't been abandoned.

Wynonna huffed a little when all he did was stare, moving like she was going to return to her seat, but Bobo reached a clumsy hand out for her, swallowing hard. "Thank you," he croaked, his voice raspy. The words felt small, but between the fog he was still working and the unfamiliar emotional terrain between them, but her lips quirked up at one corner in response and she stopped her retreat.

There was a click to his left and he looked over, finding a machine with a bag hanging off of it. A long tube extended from it, all the way down to the needle in his arm.

"And that's the morphine, meaning you won't be awake much longer," Wynonna mused.

He huffed a soft, irritable response. No wonder he was so foggy if that's what they had been pumping into his veins, and he no longer had the metabolism that would just blow through it.

"Hey, I need you to focus."

Bobo turned, feeling the hospital room shift as he did, and the medication was already pushing through him. He blinked hard, moving just enough to let the pain refocus him. "Yeah."

"Did you know?"

He blinked hard, squinting at her a little. "Gonna have to be more specific," he drawled.

"About this," she said, motioning towards the injury the curse had left him with. "When you volunteered to go after his ring, did you know what it'd do to you?"

She sounded irked with him, and he couldn't quite piece together why. "Not specifically. Knew it could have repercussions."

"Asshole," she grumbled and he shot her a questioning look.

"It needed doing and it worked."

"I know." She closed her eyes, shaking her head. "It was just so much easier to deal with you when you were _just_ an asshole. Not… the same asshole still willing to die to help end Clootie."

"Yeah, well…. lot easier when I thought you'd just be another Heir. Here today, dead tomorrow," he mumbled, feeling sleep pulling him. "Then you had to go be like him." He paused, struggling to focus. "Better 'n him."

"Get some sleep. Willa'll be back by the time you wake back up and maybe we can convince her she made it back in time."

A soft laugh escaped him as he settled back in. "Hey," he managed, catching her as she started for the door. "Alice?"

Wynonna beamed. "Outside with Doc. Last I saw they were sound to sleep together."

"Man can sleep anywhere."

"Yeah. Go to sleep, Robert. We'll be here when you wake up."

Bobo managed a small nod before letting himself drift back to sleep.

* * *

The next time he woke he could hear the soft sound of music playing. It wasn't loud enough to have been what woke him, but as he surfaced out of the painkiller induced haze he couldn't help but focus on it, the mellow tune drifting out, a man's voice muddled so that he couldn't quite make out the words, but it sounded…. peaceful.

"Hey."

The music stopped suddenly and Bobo realized that it had been coming from the earbud that Willa had left hanging free so that she could hear him when he woke. Her eyes were fixed on him now and she was smiling, leaning forward in her chair as she set her book on the side table and offered the same cup of water Wynonna had earlier. He shook his head, opting for her hand instead. She gave it readily and he felt a small smile of his own tug into place.

"How're you feeling?" she asked, her voice soft.

"Fuzzy," he answered honestly. "But better, I think. Not sure I know what to expect anymore."

"Got to get used to this whole mortality thing, huh?" Willa teased softly.

"Yeah," he breathed. "Wasn't sure I'd see the day."

"You're stubborn. I knew you'd make it."

"Never doubted it?"

"Of course not," she said with a small wink and he chuckled. He could think of a time or two, but that was in the past. He was happy to leave it there. People didn't usually get second chances like this, and he wouldn't waste his with her.

Bobo blinked his eyes back open, not daring to give his body the option of going back to sleep just yet. He squinted up at her, desperate to find all the little details of her face he knew so well. This fierce woman that he loved, that had defied the odds, and that had finally chosen him. She was there and he couldn't think of damn thing he had managed to do to deserve it.

All at once her lips stretched and she was laughing at him, the sound breaking through his thoughts. "What?"

"You. You're just… here, just a second. I got you something." She pressed a quick kiss to his hand before releasing him and ducking out of his line of sight for something. He could hear her rummaging before she straightened with a case in her hand, opening it to reveal a pair of glasses similar to the ones he'd been so comfortable with in the dream world. "Jeremy is surprisingly good at forging prescriptions," she said as she reached over and placed them on his nose, careful not to disrupt the oxygen tube looped under his nose. "And Dolls pulled a favour with his optometrist - only that man would have an optometrist owe him a favour - to get them so fast. Figured you'd need them."

Bobo chuckled, the world finally coming into focus around him. "I do. Thank you." He shifted, finding that he felt a little clearer than the last time he had woken up. "How are things? Purgatory in meltdown over watchin' a demon sucked into hell on Main Street?"

Willa rolled her eyes and took his hand again. "This town is insane."

"I'll take that as a yes?"

"Nicole's been in and out as she could, but from what she said Mrs Perkins has been blowing up the line, Mr Tamner is demanding that they have the entire street dug up for… something. I don't even know if he had a reason. Oh, and apparently someone said you must have poisoned the town again?"

"They just ain't gonna let that go," Bobo chuckled and squeezed her hand. "I don't envy 'em over in the sheriff's department."

"Even with Dolls doing damage control they've been busy, but Nedley did come by to check on you. He tried to cover it up by saying he needed something from Wynonna, but I don't think he fooled anyone."

"What? He hopin' he was finally rid of me?" Bobo chuckled. He couldn't imagine any other scenario in which the sheriff would have bothered. He hadn't been in the dream world with them and it wasn't like he'd ever given the man anything but grief.

"He saw what you did," Willa said softly. "I think he might have been a little worried." Bobo snorted and she smiled. "I think you're stuck with the whole gang."

"You too?"

"For life and then some," she promised and leaned in, pressing a gentle kiss against his dry lips. "I love you."

"You too," he managed, hearing the exhaustion in his own voice.

"Sleep."

He nodded, mumbling to agree, and he felt her push his hair back and she kissed his forehead before settling back into her seat and the music resumed. He focused in on it until he could just barely hear the words as he drifted back off to sleep.

_They will see us waving from such great heights. Come down now, they'll say, but everything looks perfect from far away. Come down now, but we'll stay._

* * *

 

 **Notes:** I'm thoroughly amused at the thought of Nedley dropping by to check on Bobo and trying to cover it up as business because he saw what he did and has more respect for him now. I'm really hoping to add much more Nedley (and Bobo and Nedley interaction) in my next multi chapter that I have in the planning stages.

There's one more chapter left, more of an epilogue of sorts. I'm really excited to get started on that soon, so hopefully it'll be up in the next week or so.


	17. Epilogue

"You thought about what I asked any?"

"Not sure you ever got 'round to actually asking," Bobo Del Rey said as he straightened from where he was leaned against the old maroon Camaro, waiting for the gas to finish pumping. He turned just in time to reach a hand up and catch the pack of cigarettes that Hank threw his way, a small nod of thanks before he started packing them against one open palm. He'd had to quit cold turkey with the injury that breaking the curse had left him with, and while part of him knew it would have been easier to just stay off of them, there was the fact that he'd been driving for a couple of days with Doc Holliday and they'd both promised not to kill one another on this trip. Nicotine seemed like a middle ground, even if his doctor would have frowned at said middle ground.

"Willa's gonna blame me for that, you know," Hank drawled, but he didn't sound too sorry about it.

Bobo shrugged. "Probably." He let his gaze sweep out over the California landscape. It had been well over a century since he had been this far south. Hell, it had been that long since he had been more than a few steps outside of the Ghost River Triangle. He hadn't dared risk the car trip as his first trip across the line after the curse had broken, but even after a good mile walk past the line without incident, it had taken him an hour into the trip for him to relax and accept that the pain wasn't coming. He was truly free.

"Changed a bit," Hank offered as he opened the driver's side door and Bobo folded himself into the passenger's seat.

A helicopter roared overhead and Bobo chuckled as he smoothed back his blond-tipped hair that had finally started growing back naturally once Clootie had been killed. "Just a little."

Holliday shifted and turned the key on the old car. Bobo sank a little lower in the seat, finishing the process of opening his pack of cigarettes, and he fit one between his lips as they lurched back into motion. It was a balance that they were still getting used to: the life they lived and the one they had all had in the dream world. He didn't think it would be something he would ever fully come to terms with, but he was getting there. This trip seemed proof enough.

Granted, they hadn't gotten to the final destination, and they still had the whole trip back to Purgatory. There was still time for an explosion between the two enemies-turned-something-like-friends.

"You still wanna make that detour on the way back?" Hank asked, reaching for where the phone was set in the holder against the dashboard. "I think it's gonna add a day to the trip…"

"Ain't gonna add a day 'less you get us lost again," Bobo grumbled. "Yeah. I need to drop by. It's not far outta the way and I need to pick somethin' up."

"What could you possibly have stored outside the Triangle that you couldn't have delivered."

"Something they didn't know they had," the former Revenant said vaguely, a tiny smirk quirking the corners of his lips as he saw the irritation working its way through Holliday. "You ever gonna finish that question you never quite asked?"

"You are an asshole, you know that?"

A low chuckle escaped him. "'Cause I'm not just gonna hand it to you? You know me better ' that, Hank. In any reality."

That pulled a chuckle from the gunslinger and he finally turned his eyes back on the road as the gps started reading out the instructions to him. "Shorty's. Would you be interested in helpin' to run it?"

"And why would you want that?" Bobo asked suspiciously.

"Thought you might need somethin' to focus on now that you're healed up an'... stayin'." Bobo felt his gaze slide over towards him as much as he saw it. "You n' Willa are still stayin', right?"

"We're still stayin', Hank," he answered softly. "You ain't gotta rope us into it."

He watched the other man dance around his words to do his best to cover that notion up and Bobo shook his head as they pulled in towards their destination. "I ain't got the time to take the bar on again. Not full time. Check with Willa though. Soon as she's got new place put together she'll be crawlin' the walls."

Doc pulled the car to a stop, quirking one pushy eyebrow. "Exactly what do you have goin' now that you're not runnin' a bunch of Revenants?"

"Not every business endeavour was illegal," Bobo pointed out, not bothering to hide his amusement at Hank's sputtering as he opened the door and unfolded out of the car and into the warm afternoon sun.

Where laughter might have followed any other time, a solemness washed over both men as they moved silently together down the path marked between the trees. Rows of graves of men and women long since passed lined either side as they wound through and between them until they neared the one marked on the folded map in Hank's hand.

Every step felt a little harder to take, Bobo's chest growing a little tighter and he knew it had nothing to do with the nearly-healed injury or the cigarette he'd smoked in the car over. No, this was the entire reason Willa had pushed him to come. He had faced down his share of demons, but there was one last ghost to let go of.

"Wouldn'ta ever thought it be you I came here with," Holliday murmured as they approached the headstone.

Bobo didn't manage more than a grunt in response, his throat running dry on him so that he was having trouble pulling air down it to his lungs. He swallowed hard, but I'd didn't do a lot of good as his gaze adjusted through the glasses perched on his nose, reading a name that had lingered over the years.

 _Wyatt Berry Stapp_. _Earp_.

He widened his stance a little to make sure he remained steady even as Holliday squatted down next to the stone, his palm resting on it, and he spoke in a lowly, his voice shaking a little as he greeted the final resting place of an old friend. Bobo couldn't shake the feeling he was intruding on the moment. That this had been a mistake and he didn't belong there.

Before he knew it his feet were carrying him away from grave. Where to, he wasn't sure. Just anywhere but there. He dug deeply into his pocket for the pack of cigarettes and lighter, knocking one out and putting it to his lips without breaking stride.

He had had his choice of places to go. He had made sure to protect the money he'd accumulated over his time in Purgatory and he could have taken Willa anywhere. They could have gone to Europe. His father's parents had immigrated from Norway. That could have been interesting. Anything would have been better than Colma, California to see Wyatt Earp's grave site. What the hell had he been thinking?

Bobo loosed a loud breath, his teeth snapping together and he looked around, finding himself blissfully alone in the far reaches of the graveyard. He'd get himself together and then make his way back to the car. Holliday could say his goodbyes. Wyatt didn't deserve his.

* * *

"I'm still having a really hard time picturing Bobo Del Rey living in an apartment," Wynonna said as dove into one of the boxes that were scattered around the living room of her sisters new digs.

"Pretty sure he lived in the upstairs apartment above Shorty's when he owned it," Waverly pointed out.

"That's different," Wynonna argued. "That's not…. I don't know. Normal?"

"Hey! I lived above Shorty's!"

"When you were dating Champ. Like I said. Not normal."

"Really, Waves? Champ Hardy?" Willa asked, more than a little disgust lining her tone.

"Okay okay, I get it. Everyone's allowed one really bad life choice, right? At least I didn't sleep with a Revenant."

Wynonna shot her a glare and she heard Willa's mischievous smile before she saw it. "Oh. You're not talking about me, are you?" she asked slyly, leaning back against the palm of her hands on the floor and shooting the middle sister an expectant look. "Okay, story time."

"I'm going to stuff grass down your pants," Wynonna warned the grinning Waverly.

"Turnabout's fair. C'mon. You heard Willa. Story time."

"I hate you both."

"No you don't," Willa chirped.

"In my defense, I was _really_ drunk."

"That's not surprising." Willa leaned forward. "Was he good at least? I mean, I really only have one Revenant to base it off of, and I know…"

"Okay, could we not talk about yours and Bobo's sex life?" Waverly managed.

"But mine's okay?" Wynonna grumbled.

"What's-his-name didn't make it sound like he was actually my father or anything."

Wynonna looked immediately to Willa who had lost the mischief in her eyes. It was replaced with a careful look, like she was weighing her next words slowly.

Waverly beat her to it. "Yeah, also to catch you up: I'm adopted. No, Bobo is not my dad-"

"Well that's a relief," Willa murmured.

"-and I don't know who is, but…. yeah. I'm not really an Earp."

Wynonna waited a long moment, biting back the inclination to remind Waves that she was their sister if they shared blood or not. She and Willa had been a lot closer in the dream world, and the Willa that had come back to them this time seemed to hold onto those memories like an anchor. How she answered would say a lot about what sort of relationship this blurred reality would bring with it.

Willa pushed a long breath out through her nose, looking Waverly straight in the eye. "You point me to the person that told you you weren't an Earp and I'll kick their ass."

Wynonna barked a laugh and Waverly's smile returned. "Bobo, actually."

"I'll kick his ass for you when he gets home. Don't think I won't," Willa laughed, the mischief back. "I'll tell you a secret about Robert. He'll let people believe what they want to if it keeps them from fighting him on something. You have to learn to read between the half truths with him to find the whole truth. He's spent too long having to hide things to be straight forward."

Waverly leaned back. "You wanna teach me how to translate Bobo?"

"I think I can manage that for my baby sister."

Wynonna stood, moving to sit between her two sisters and she motioned until they came in close enough that she could wrap an arm around both of them. "No more dying. No more going to the dark side. The Earp sisters stick together, got it?"

"Definitely."

"Got it."

Wynonna watched her sisters' smiles and she shifted so that Waverly could pull her closer. No matter what had happened, what horrible things had befallen them all, they were stronger than all of that. They were stronger together. "Welcome home, Willa."

* * *

In his way, Doc Holliday had already bid his farewells to Wyatt many years ago. Even so, he felt a weight lift from him as he knelt at the grave there, telling Wyatt about everything that had happened. There were apologies said and stories told. He described Alice in every beautiful detail, and promised Wyatt that he would be so very proud of Wynonna if he could have known her.

He hoped his old friend might see him differently than he had when they had parted ways as well. Doc was a changed man since those days and while time had been a brutal teacher, but he'd come out of it in the other side mostly whole in ways he hadn't realized that he hadn't been before.

Doc couldn't say exactly when he'd gone, but at some point he had looked back and Bobo was gone, vanished like he'd never been there at all.

At first he thought maybe Robert had stepped away to give him space, but the more he thought about it, the less likely that seemed. A lot of things had changed with the dream world, but Bobo's opinion of Wyatt Earp wasn't one of them. If he were honest, Doc had been a little surprised when he had agreed to come along at all, and it looked like he might be questioning that now too.

The gunslinger murmured his final farewell, fingertip lingering just a moment on the grave before he started out in search of the man he used to hate.

He found Robert leaned against the back of the car, cigarette hanging loosely from his lips and eyes closed. Memories from the dream world pushed to the front of Doc's mind, strangely familiar even if Robert looked so different here. Ringed fingers nervously smoothed back the strip of dual-coloured hair on top of his head, his other hand moving to push his glasses back up the bridge of his nose before taking hold of the cigarette again. He'd seen the motions time and time again while they had been in undergrad in another life. Robert had always been able to shoulder stress relatively well, but every now and again it was too much and he would retreat to a place no one would see the signs. No one but Hank.

"You done?"

Doc startled a bit and found a pair of clear blue eyes watching him. He quirked an eyebrow. "I've said my goodbyes. Your turn."

Bobo blew a long puff of smoke out through his nose, but his gaze returned to the road that the car was parked on and Doc knew that look. It was the one that said he was doing what he could to keep every inch of his raging emotions locked down tight. It had taken years in the other world to get to the level of trust to let him in on that, and it looked like their return to reality hadn't brought all of it with them. Fair enough, but Doc wasn't walking away now.

He joined him in leaning and reached for the pack of cigarettes sitting on the trunk of the car, lighting one up. He knew from experience that this could be a long wait.

The former Revenant huffed. "If you're ready to go-"

"Soon as you're done."

"I'm done."

Doc snorted, his lips thinning and tilting down, and he quirked an eyebrow up towards the brim of his hat. "You gonna look me in the eye and tell me you got what you came here for?"

He watched the other man click his teeth together irritably, a half snarl escaping him. "Ain't no peace for me here, Holliday. No closure. I know that now."

"You got all that from the five seconds you stood there?"

The half snarl turned into a full growl and Doc saw his eyes flash dangerously, even if they no longer turned red. He offered a shrug and took a long drag off his cigarette. "I'm just sayin' that we came all this way. Even if you gotta rage and curse at 'im, make the trip worth it."

"Rage and curse at him, huh?" Bobo asked, the words leaving out on a strained chuckle. "Funny. 'Bout a year ago it went all over you to hear the truth that he'd screwed us both over."

The smoke curled out in front of him and he remembered looking down into the well to see a raging Bobo Del Rey bouncing up and down, dark blood splattered across the front and back of the straight jacket he had been wearing, and the way his blood had boiled just to hear Wyatt's name tumble from the demon's lips. He had hated him then, but he hadn't understood him. "Lot's happened in a year. Whole lifetime worth and then some." He paused, risking a glance to the side. "You an' I left out from Wyatt in very different places."

Angry features eased just a little and Doc saw the signs of the internal battle. Silence passed between them for a long moment as they leaned against the car, the afternoon sun breaking through the trees, and finally Robert loosed a long sigh, flicking his cigarette to the dirt and he ground it with his boot. As he pushed himself off the car Doc dug into the inside pocket of his coat and pulled a flask from it, handing it over. A small smirk played at the other man's features as he took it. "Best decisions of our lives while drunk, huh?"

Doc barked a laugh. "Just shout if there's a demon in the treeline."

"Will do," Bobo huffed and Doc watched him turn to trudge back in the direction of Wyatt's grave. He didn't move, though. Robert deserved his chance to find whatever peace he could with the dead.

* * *

Bobo felt a little like he was walking to his own execution. Maybe that's all he really connected his former friend with now: his own death. His own destruction. No matter what glimpses the dream world had given him, what pieces of his tattered soul the breaking of the curse had restored, he knew he'd never been the same. He was too angry, too broken after all these years. There was precious little left of the man that he'd been, even if the woman he loved seemed to find glimpses where even he couldn't.

He'd loved Wyatt once. Loved him, respected him… hell, he'd idolized the man. He had died for the man, and as his boots sunk into soft, grassy dirt with each heavy step Bobo found himself wondering just what had caused him to hate so thoroughly. He wasn't sure if it was the curse that drove that in deep or time that had caught him in the endless cycle that never let those last memories of life and desertion go. As he approached the grave again, taking a long swig from the flask Hank had given him, he could feel his chest tightening as emotions raged with each other inside of him for his focus. He wanted to hate him as much as he wished he could still think about him without all the bitterness he'd been left with. His dear friend that had left him to die alone. Nothing was ever simple.

The tombstone hadn't changed in the time that it had taken him to wind his way back to the car. Bobo sneered at it a little, adding an extra glare towards Josephine's name. Damn if that woman hadn't hated him. He could still recall her dark glare at her son's wedding. Bobo had lingered back along the treeline, but she'd seen him. She'd made sure he knew.

He shook his head and focused in on Wyatt's side of it, pushing his glasses up his nose and a long breath out of it.

Coming to Wyatt Earp's final resting place had made more sense in the abstract. Willa had been the one to push him. She'd thought that it would help him put his past behind him and allow him to move forward without all that weight, but as he stood there he knew that he'd never be rid of Wyatt. Hate him, love him, it didn't matter. The gunslinger's presence would remain even if he'd been at rest for nearly a century. He'd spoken of stepping into the light, but no matter where he went, Wyatt was there. He influenced everything. His friendships, even his family he was building. Willa was the man's great-great granddaughter and their children…. Bobo sighed, thinking of that ultrasound he had seen of his and Willa's son before the dream world had shattered. Wyatt. They were going to name him Wyatt.

He took a heavy seat on the grass, his back pressed up against the side on the tombstone and his knees bent, the strange realization sinking in. Here at the end, after everything was said and done, the war finally finished, everything in his life that he cared about could still be traced back to Wyatt Earp.

"Guess I gotta find a way to stop fighting, huh?" he murmured out loud. "I never thought I was much of a fighter 'till I had to be. That's all I've done since the day you died. 'Least I didn't remember in the dream. Here… I don't know how to be anything but what Clootie made me." A rough laugh escaped him and he took a sip from the flask. "How the hell am I 'spose to be anything else?"

"You know, I've been told kids change ya."

Bobo looked over to see Holliday sauntering up and he squinted at him as he moved from where he'd been blocking the sun. "Can't let me say my goodbyes without gettin' in the middle?" he asked, but there wasn't any malice in his voice.

Hank smirked under that absurd mustache. "Just makin' sure you made it. I'll give you-"

"Sit. Might as well." He settled back where he'd been as Hank moved, sitting on the other side of the stone opposite of him and Bobo passed the flask over his head and felt him take it.

"You know," Hank drawled as he took a swig, "I think he'd be happier that you ended up with his kin than me."

"Oh I know he would," Bobo chuckled and he felt a real smile tug hesitantly. "Used to give me hell over women."

"Bet you deserved ever jab."

"Maybe." He loosed a breath. "I'm gonna ask Willa to marry me. That's why we're stoppin' off on the way back. There's a lockbox in the town I grew up in that has my mother's wedding ring in it."

Hank made a small sound of acknowledgement and suddenly he was passing the flask back. "Do I get to use the same best man speech?"

"You're awful presumptuous."

"Who else is gonna put up with your dramatic ass?"

"You're one to talk."

He heard an amused snort from the other side of the grave, but Hank didn't try to deny it. They sat there together, sharing the whiskey and the cigarettes as the afternoon stretched on. No one bothered them and in the end Bobo was surprised to find that Hank's presence at Wyatt's grave helped rather than hurt, and as the sun dipped low in the sky it was Hank that finally offered him a hand up. "C'mon. We got a couple of Earps waitin' on us back home."

Bobo stared at it for a long moment, rooted in the spot next to a man that had been in the ground for nearly ninety years. He was gone, and even if the memory lingered, it was time to move on. He reached up, feeling Hank haul him off the ground and he rolled his eyes as the other man swung an arm around his shoulders, the two of them starting on the journey home.

* * *

Alice giggled loudly as Nicole leaned in, making a goofy face for the little girl who threw her hands up in the air with a laugh that worked its way in deep. Things had been surprisingly quiet since Bulshar's death, even if a few more obnoxious citizens of Purgatory had flipped their shit for a while after it. They had done damage control and they had rebuilt what the demon had torn apart, but all in all it was a slower pace than Wynonna had known in some time now. Possibly ever. Days had stretched into weeks and weeks into months, but she was finally ready to admit that they had won.

What came next was a mystery. Dolls had made it clear that, in his experience, the void the curse left behind would eventually draw something to fill it. The Revenants that had made it to the end of Wynonna's tenure were human again, most of them running for the line as soon as they knew that they could, but there were plenty of other creatures ready and willing to cause trouble.

Nothing compared to the Earp Curse yet, and with that knowledge came a chance for rest that she had almost forgotten. She had her family, and they were safe and they were whole. Willa was staying and if Doc did what he said he was going to do, he might even rope Bobo into running Shorty's with him. She was getting more used to that bizarre friendship. It was different than the dream world, but better than she'd ever thought she would see here considering she would have been happy with any sign that they weren't going to shoot or throttle each other.

What still remained uncertain was where she was going with Doc. Months after Clootie's death he was proving to be the father she knew he was capable of being. While he technically had moved back into the barn, he spent most nights in the house with her, switching off to get Alice if she woke. He loved on that little girl with everything he had in him and she'd been half surprised that he'd been able to tear himself away to go on his trip. Alice had missed her daddy, but Wynonna had been a little surprised at just how much she had as well, and that while he hadn't pushed her again, that she found herself wanting to make that choice.

"Looks like the boys are home," Waverly called from the window.

"Both of them?" Willa asked from her seat on the floor with Nicole and Alice.

"I do count two."

The oldest Earp sister grinned. "Small miracles."

"Or not so small," Wynonna said with a smirk as she glanced over to Alice.

Nicole caught her eye and motioned towards the door, pulling the toddler into her lap. Wynonna started to protest, but the look the other woman gave her stopped it in its tracks. Instead she offered a nod of thanks before promising Alice she would be right back.

Doc was just unfolding out of the car as Wynonna stepped out of the front door onto the porch that had been the last piece of the Homestead to be repaired following the battle they had had there. The late morning sun was high in the sky and he lit when he saw her, those expressive eyes of his brightening. "Hello, Darlin'," he greeted, tipping his hat and she rolled her eyes.

"Willa's inside," she offered Bobo as he passed by, looking more than a little stiff from the long drive.

"I'll leave you two to it," he answered with a wink.

Wynonna shook her head, but as she turned back to Doc she saw that his smile hadn't faded. She wasn't sure when she gave herself permission, but her legs carried her faster and faster and she met him halfway to wrap her arms around his neck. He picked her up, her boots leaving the dirt, and she leaned into the kiss without reservation.

It lingered even when he finally put her down, and when he tried to pull back for a breath she caught his face between her hands and he stayed.

When they did part, they were both short of breath.

"Why Wynonna Earp," he drawled, never moving far, "I do believe you've missed me."

"Yeah? What gave you that impression?" she teased and he grinned, kissing her again. Her hands roamed, one latching around the back of his neck and she found those eyes of his watching her. "Don't go."

"Hadn't planned on it, being as we just got back."

"No," she breathed, her hand finding his. "I mean ever. Don't go."

"Wynonna…."

"I know I don't say it and it gets…. complicated between us, but I'm in, Henry. I'm in. I love you."

Doc stared at her for a long moment, almost like he was trying to work through the words and find something he missed. "You mean that?"

"Yeah. I do."

He nodded slowly, leaning in and kissing her forehead. "I love you too."

"Well that's a relief," she laughed, watching him shake his head at her awkward attempt. She nodded back to the house. "There's a little girl that's missed you,"

"And I've missed her." A little mischief worked its way into his eyes. "And we don't wanna miss what Robert's got planned."

Wynonna didn't have a chance to question it as he started past her and she didn't let go of his hand.

* * *

Nervous wasn't a state that Bobo Del Rey found himself in very often. Not anymore. With time and power he had learned to fake the confidence that had worked its way deep inside of him, becoming part of him even if it hadn't started that way.

He could remember being this nervous though. It had been as Robert Svane in the dream world as the night that had been so well planned went to hell with each perfectly laid out step blowing up in his face. The reservations at the nice restaurant had been lost, their name not on the list like he had confirmed and, strangely enough, the entire town had apparently decided they needed to eat there that night. After waiting far longer than either of them had liked the food was cold and Willa had decided that Shorty's was a better option. It would have been any other night, but by the time they had arrived and grabbed their favourite seat in the back, Robert had about decided that that was the wrong night. Then Willa had grabbed his coat from the back of his chair to fit over her own shoulders to keep the cold away, and found the ring. Nothing had gone as planned that night, but the look on her face had made every nerve wracking second worth it.

Of all the things that had changed, he hoped that wasn't one of them.

"Hey you," Willa greeted as she picked herself up from the floor where she had been playing with her niece. She crossed the space between them and wrapped her arms around his neck, holding on tight as he pulled her in, burying his nose in the crook of her neck. "Missed you too," she chuckled when he didn't let go right away. "How'd it go? Did you get what you went for?"

"What I needed," he acknowledged roughly, finally pulling back to find those hazel eyes locked on him.

He was reaching back for his pocket when she dropped her hands into his. "Come here. I have a surprise for you."

A huff escaped him to cover the small sound of protest as she pulled him off to the side and into the kitchen as Alice giggled shrilly, waving at him at Waverly's encouragement. "Willa-"

"I know you don't like surprises, but I promise you'll like this one."

She was still halfway dragging him into the kitchen and away from the others, and Bobo could feel his nerves fraying. From the moment he laid hands on the ring the idea had become reality and he just needed to get home and give it to her without incident. It couldn't wait any longer. He'd waited long enough.

"Willa." Her name left his lips on a low breath and she turned, seeming to realize that he was trying to say something. "Let me get this out?" He found himself held by those eyes and his chest tightened as he leaned in, resting his forehead against hers. "I'm not good at this…."

"At what?" she asked softly.

"Being open. Not keeping things back. Trusting." He heard her make a small sound of agreement with that last one and he found himself smiling a little. "Most people don't get second chances like we have…. certainly not people like me."

"Robert…"

"I know what I am, Willa. I know what I've become to survive, and the curse breaking ain't gonna change me back into the man I was before it, but…. We've got this. A second chance. I don't wanna lose out on it."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the box he had picked up, handing it to her. Willa stared at it for a long moment before her fingers slowly and carefully worked the latch open to reveal what was now an antique ring inside of it. "For life," she breathed.

"For life. Ain't nobody else but you. I know we can't have everything from the dream, but…. anything I can give you is yours."

He saw her smile as she worked the ring out, letting him slip it onto her finger before she reached up to rest her palm against his dark beard. Bobo's eyes drifted closed and he leaned in, the kiss soft and sweet and he could feel the promise between them now that they were free of the curse to make it.

"Hey," she whispered as they broke, not bothering to pull away. "We might not have everything from the other world, but there's a little girl on her way that I already know is going to have her daddy's smile."

It took half a beat for the meaning behind the words to kick in and Bobo felt his knees give under him with the weight of the realization. Their daughter. Grace. Willa was pregnant.

She laughed at his reaction, pulling him close as he knelt in front of her. "Pretty sure you're supposed to do that with the ring."

A laugh escaped him and he leaned in, his cheek pressed against her. "When did you find out?"

She didn't answer right away and when he looked up he saw a sheepish grin on her face. "Right before you left," she confessed, but he barely got his mouth open before she cut him off. "Don't be upset. I knew you'd never go if you knew, and you and Doc needed that trip."

There was a crashing sound from the living room and they turned, Bobo stumbling back to his feet even as Wynonna Earp rounded the corner, all grins and excitement. Hank must have told her with the way she strode in, immediately going for her sister's hand. "Holy shit."

"Surprises all around," Willa said with a grin.

Wynonna turned, and Bobo smirked at the look she gave him. "You gonna give me all the same threats?"

"And more," the retired Heir swore, a smile breaking loose and she punched him lightly in the shoulder, a sly look in her eyes. "So should we get you guys a cat for your wedding present so Grace'll have her when she gets here?"

Bobo smirked. "Only if you want Hank n' me to go pick up that mutt on the side of the road I talked 'im out of."

A brief look of horror flashed through Wynonna's eyes before she shook her head, laughing as she started back to the living room. Bobo followed, watching quietly as the Earp household filled with excited voices and congratulations. Willa was beaming, Hank had Alice in his arms and the little girl was giggling as he kissed her cheek. It was different, there was no doubt about it, but in the ways that mattered it was right. He would never fully leave Wyatt behind because Wyatt's family had become his own. The laughter, the loyalty, and the love that ran so deep through their family in the dream world survived, and somehow they'd managed to keep hold of it there, and he'd be damned if he let that go.

* * *

 

 **End**.

Notes: I was a little worried the epilogue would be super short and then it turns out to be just shy of 6K long. Oops?  I realized that I had a lot that I really wanted to wrap up.

I do have 3 one shots that I've started within the dream world that I plan to post eventually if all goes well. If you guys have any requests for a one shot in the dream world, just let me know :)

Thank you for joining me on this ride!  It's been a ton of fun and I'm hoping to do another Wynonna Earp multi chapter soon!


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